BERLIN (Reuters) – BMW said on Wednesday that the second half of the year would be very unstable because of inflation, fears of gas shortages, and supply chain bottlenecks that haven’t been fixed. Higher prices only partially made up for lower output.
The luxury automaker maintained its automotive margin forecast of 7-9 percent and anticipates a solid sales increase in the second half.However, the total number of cars delivered across the group will not reach last year’s record high of 2.52 million.
It also said that tightening sanctions on Russia, stopping the flow of gas, or the possibility that the war in Ukraine could spread were not taken into account.
Analyst Daniel Roeska of Bernstein Research said in a note on Wednesday that BMW is the first company to warn about demand. “A warning for the end of the year 2022 probably means that BMW is already seeing a drop in customer demand right now.”
A survey conducted by the Ifo institute in Germany on Wednesday showed that the business situation of German carmakers started to get worse in July, with order backlogs getting smaller and price expectations going down.
The Munich-based carmaker was more pessimistic about the future than its competitor, Mercedes-Benz. Last week, Mercedes-Benz raised its earnings outlook for the year because profits and revenue went up in the second quarter, even though unit sales went down.
Even though BMW’s sales went up in the second quarter, its earnings went down by 31%, to 3.4 billion euros ($3.46 billion). This was still better than the 3.13 billion euro estimate from a Refinitiv poll of eight analysts.
BMW said that the consolidation of its China joint venture, BMW Brilliance Automotive, boosted sales in the first half but hurt earnings in the second quarter. Its automotive margin was 8.2%, down from 15.8% last year.
Overall, the revaluation of the Chinese joint venture shares increased earnings before taxes in the first half by 7.7 billion euros.
BMW’s share of the joint venture it has with Brilliance Auto Group went from 50% to 75% in February, after Beijing gave them the permission they needed to take majority control.
It said at the time that the deal would improve the financial results of the auto business by 7-8 billion euros.
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