BMW reported higher-than-expected quarterly profits, defying the chip shortage that is hitting all carmakers hard.
BMW on Wednesday confirmed its annual forecast, raised recently after posting a profit of 2.6 billion euros in the third quarter, up 42% year-on-year despite the chip shortage that is holding back sales for a large majority of carmakers worldwide. Between July and September of this year, the German manufacturer sold 593,200 cars, down 12% year-on-year.
However, BMW has decided to change its sales strategy to overcome the shortage of electronic chips. The German car manufacturer decided to refocus its sales on its most profitable models, which enabled the company to compensate for the production cuts due to the chip shortage. Similarly, the brand has increased the price of some of its models.
The rise of electric vehicles is also a factor in the manufacturer’s ability to cope with the shortage of electronic chips southafrica-ed.com. Sales of the latter have almost doubled in the last nine months, to just under 232,000 vehicles.
The group expects operating profitability this year to be between 9.5% and 10.5% for its automotive division, compared with 7.8% in the third quarter and 11.3% in the first nine months of the year. The net profit should exceed that of 2020, which was weighed down by the pandemic.
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