German luxury carmaker BMW, the world’s biggest, beat expectations yesterday with a new record net profit for the July to September period after selling record numbers of vehicles.
The Munich-based firm said it had made €1.8bn ($2.0bn) in net profit, up 15% compared with the €1.6bn it made in the same period in 2015.
Analysts surveyed by Factset had predicted net profits would remain stable in the third quarter. BMW was “maintaining a strong basis for the consistent implementation of our strategy” of investing profits into research and development in areas like electric and driverless cars, chief executive Harald Krueger said.
Sales by the world’s biggest high-end carmaker by revenue grew to €23.4bn in the third quarter, with its BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce divisions all booking big increases in unit sales.
The group sold more than 583,000 cars in the July to September period, up 7.1% compared with the second quarter of 2015.
But it wasn’t spared by the cooling-off in the US market, which is on a downwards trend after years of record sales.
CEO Krueger blamed “intense competition” for an 8.7% year-on-year fall in US sales in the first nine months in a press teleconference yesterday. The carmaker made up ground in other global regions, with net profit for the first nine months of the year growing by 11.7% to €5.5bn. BMW confirmed its “confident” forecast for the full year, saying it would slightly increase unit sales and pre-tax profits compared with 2015.