BMW drives on to record sales, earnings in 2013

FRANKFURT — German top-of-the-range carmaker BMW said on Friday it achieved record sales and earnings and plans to pay an increased dividend to shareholders.

“With its fourth straight record year, the BMW group’s strong performance continued during the past year despite a challenging economic environment worldwide,” said Chief Executive Norbert Reithofer.

“In 2013, we achieved new highs for sales volume and profit and have thereby reached the targets we set ourselves for the full year,” he boasted. 

BMW indicated that its net profit rose by 4.5 per cent to 5.34 billion euros ($7.5 billion) in 2013.

Pre-tax profit was up 1.4 per cent at 7.913 billion euros.

Revenues slipped by 1 per cent to 76.058 billion euros, but unit sales jumped by 6.4 per cent to a record 1.964 million vehicles, with all three brands — BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce — “registering all-time highs”.

BMW said it would increase its dividend payment so as to “share its success with shareholders”.

The management board would propose raising the payout on common shares to 2.60 euros apiece from 2.50 euros last year, and 2.62 euros on preference shares. 

Looking ahead, BMW said it was “striving to increase worldwide sales volume further in 2014”.

“We forecast further sales volume growth in the current year which will again bring us a new all-time high. In doing so, we should exceed the threshold of two million vehicles,” Reithofer said.

Separately, Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest carmaker, is set to sell more than 10-million vehicles this year, Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn said on Friday.

“There is a good chance that we will already exceed the 10 million deliveries mark this year — four years earlier than originally planned,” Winterkorn told the group’s annual earnings news conference.

VW “made a healthy start to 2014”, Winterkorn said.

In the first two months, about 1.5 million passenger cars and light commercial vehicles were delivered worldwide, a year-on-year increase of 4.7 per cent.

This year and next year, VW — with a wide range of brands including Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT, Skoda, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Scania and MAN — would launch more than 100 new models, successors and product enhancements, he continued.

In 2013, worldwide deliveries rose by 4.9 per cent to 9.7 million vehicles.

Revenues were up 2.2 per cent at 197 billion euros and operating profit reached a record 11.7 billion euros.

Bottom-line profit, on the other hand, fell to 9.1 billion euros in 2013 from 21.9 billion euros a year earlier, largely because the 2012 figure had been positively impacted by measures in connection with the integration of sports car maker Porsche.

“2013 was an extremely challenging year for European automakers in particular. We weren’t helped either by our home market or by exchange rates. Nevertheless, the Volkswagen group put up a strong showing despite the difficult conditions,” Winterkorn said. 

And “in light of the company’s continued success, the management board will propose an increased dividend of 4 euros per ordinary share and 4.06 euros per preference share”, he added. 

“Despite the persistently challenging market environment,” Winterkorn said he was “guardedly confident” about business development in the rest of 2014. “We are expecting a moderate increase in deliveries.” 

Challenges would come from the difficult market environment and fierce competition, as well as interest rate and exchange rate volatility and fluctuations in raw materials prices, Winterkorn added.