BMW doing well despite poor economic climate
BMW Group remains committed to its targets for the full year 2013
The general economic forecast for Western Europe is likely to remain challenging in the coming months with weak markets and increasing competition making conditions difficult for all manufacturers. The BMW group however seems to be riding the storm and is still committed to its targets for 2013 despite the volatile economic environment.
Reithofer of BMW reaffirmed:
"We continue to target sales volume growth for the full year in the single-digit range and hence a new sales volume record. Due to high levels of expenditure for new technologies and models as well as investment in the production network, we continue to predict a Group profit before tax for 2013 on a similar scale to 2012", .
The Motorcycles segment forecasts further sales volume growth in the current year thanks to new appealing models such as the R 1200 GS, which BMW hopes will, in turn, bring about a further rise in revenues and earnings.
The Financial Services segment is also expected to continue to perform strongly and remains committed to achieving well.
Forecasts for the current year are based on the assumption that worldwide economic and political conditions will not change significantly.
R1200GS
Motorcycles segment
Second-quarter revenue of the Motorcycles segment rose by 15.9% to € 475 million
and 40,209 motorcycles (2012: 34,816 units; +15.5%) were sold during the period from April to June.
Sales volume in the period under report rose by 9.7% to 64,941 units (2012: 59,189 units), a new record for a first six-month period.
In February, the new F 800 GT and a number of special models (R 1200 R,
R 1200 RT and R 1200 GS Adventure) were launched to mark BMW Motorrad's 90th anniversary. This was followed in March by the highly successful R 1200 GS long-distance enduro. The new F 800 GS Adventure has been available to customers since mid-June.
The BMW Group’s workforce at 30th June 2013 had increased by 4.8% compared to one year earlier. The BMW Group had a worldwide workforce of 106,870 employees at the end of the second quarter 2013 (2012: 102,007 employees). The increase was attributable to the growing need for engineers and skilled workers in order to keep pace with continued strong demand on the one hand and to push ahead with innovations and develop new technologies on the other.
Information from a press release from BMW
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