BERLIN (Reuters) -German premium car maker BMW on Thursday reported a higher quarterly net profit and maintained its full-year earnings outlook as strong pricing enabled it to shrug off rising costs and supply chain issues.
“Our solid third-quarter results underline that flexibility creates resilience… we are on track to meet our targets for the year,” chief executive Oliver Zipse said in a statement.
But the company warned that rising inflation and interest rate hikes “are causing conditions for consumers to deteriorate, which will impact their purchasing behaviour in the coming months.”
The carmaker said it therefore expects its above-average order books to “normalise, especially in Europe.”
BMW said it expects full-year sales for the year to be slightly lower than in 2021, while its fully-electric vehicle (EV) sales should double.
Despite an overall 9.5% drop in sales versus the same period last year, the Munich-based carmaker’s third-quarter revenue jumped 35.3% to 37.18 billion euros ($36.49 billion), above analysts’ expectations of 35.32 billion euros according to Refinitiv estimates.
BMW posted a pre-tax profit of 4.1 billion euros, beating analysts’ forecasts of 3.4 billion euros.
($1 = 1.0190 euros)
(Writing by Nick Carey, Paul Carrel and Maria Sheahan; Editing by Kim Coghill)
