Last year was a challenging one for everyone in the automotive segment. Therefore, car makers were hit pretty hard by the downturn recorded in the economy in 2020. BMW posted its financial results for 2020 earlier today and, as it turns out, it looks like deliveries of new cars dropped by 8.4 percent last year, to a total of 2.33 million cars, numbers accounting for the entire group.
That also had an impact on the profit, of course, BMW reporting that the full-year profit before tax figure dropped by 27 percent, to 5.2 billion euros. However, the free cash flow added up to 3.4 billion euros by the end of 2020, a number higher than the figure recorded in 2019.
China helped out a lot with the year-end numbers, as it actually recorded an overall sales increase in 2020, going up by 7.4 percent to a total of 778,412 units. Other markets weren’t so profitable, sales dropping by 16 percent in Europe and 18 percent in the US.
“Our performance in the second half of the year demonstrated just how strong the BMW Group is. By pooling all of our strengths, we soon overcame the impact of weeks of plant closures and nationwide lockdowns. And we have ensured that the BMW Group never stands still,” Oliver Zipse, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG, said in a statement issued today. “We are looking to 2021 with confidence and aim to maintain the growth momentum of recent months,” Chief Financial Officer Nicolas Peter added.
BMW also announced an adjustment to its forecast on how the drivetrain options will change starting with 2025. According to the Germans, given the rapid progress of electrification, it is likely that up to 50% of today’s drivetrain variants will have disappeared by 2025. BMW is also striving to reduce model portfolio complexity and boost efficiency in the fields of purchasing, production and sales.
