BMW powers through second quarter towards record year

[FRANKFURT] A favourable world auto market helped German carmaker BMW to post profits 11 per cent higher in the second quarter than the same period last year, results released on Tuesday showed.

The Munich-based firm said that it had made 1.95 billion euros (S$2.92 billion) of profit on 25 billion euros of revenue.

BMW chairman Harald Krueger said the carmaker's performance was a new record for the second quarter, putting it on track to hit its targets for the full year in 2016.

"We forecast slight increases, and hence new record figures, for sales volume and profit before tax in 2016," Mr Krueger said in a statement.

Unit sales across its three car brands - BMW, Mini, and Rolls Royce - climbed 5.7 per cent from April to June to 605,534.

That brought underlying, or operating, profit to 2.7 billion euros - eight per cent higher than the same period in 2015.

Most of BMW's growth came from Europe and Asia, with unit sales up 11.2 per cent and 7.3 per cent.

But unit sales in the Americas declined overall by 8 per cent, with a double-digit drop of 10.2 per cent in the important USA market.

Growth was largely driven by increased orders for flagship models such as the BMW 7 series.

The firm also said that electric models accounted for a larger proportion of vehicles sold.

Customers in the Netherlands and Sweden were particularly keen, with electric cars accounting for double-digit proportions of BMW car sales in June in the two Western European nations.

AFP