Despite The Pandemic Slowdown, BMW Is Set To Hit Its 2020 Targets

You could say BMW is “cautiously optimistic” but despite a disastrous Q2 courtesy of the COVID-19 pandemic – they remain on course to hit their 2020 targets, having bagged profits before taxes of approximately EUR 500 million thus far.

 After implementing controlled cutbacks at many of its plants in March as a response to the foreseeable drop in global demand, BMW initiated a coordinated restart of its production facilities in the second quarter. Since mid-June, all its manufacturing plants have again been working in regular shifts. 

Oliver Zipse, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG added, “Our swift responsiveness and consistent management strategy enabled us to limit the impact of the corona pandemic on the BMW Group during the first half of the year. We are now looking ahead to the second six-month period with cautious optimism and continue to target an EBIT margin between 0 and 3% for the automotive segment in 2020.”

Despite some rollbacks, the Group remains committed to its future development goals saying that it intends to invest more than EUR 30 billion in research and development up to 2025, as stated previously. Much of this expenditure will be concentrated on the company’s new wave of electrified products and the facilities to support that shift in technology and digitisation.

The figure includes expenses for the ongoing electrification process and, in particular, for developing the BMW iNEXT. As previously reported, capital expenditure on property, plant and equipment as well as on other intangible assets is being undertaken on a prioritised, highly focused basis.

Another future milestone is the reduction of its CO2 emissions up to the year 2030 - from the supply chain to production and through to a vehicle’s end-of-life phase. Over this entire period, CO2 emissions per vehicle are to be reduced significantly by at least one third by 2030 compared with 2019 levels.

The key lever for achieving this target is a comprehensive product strategy that massively promotes the use of e-mobility. In ten years, the goal is to have a total of over seven million electrified BMW Group vehicles on the roads – some two-thirds of which will be all-electric models.

This product onslaught begins with the offering of five all-electric, series-produced automobiles in the form of the BMW i3, the MINI Cooper SE, the BMW iX3, the BMW iNEXT and the BMW i4. The next generation of the BMW 7 Series will mark a further important milestone – the first time the flagship model will be offered with four different drivetrains: petrol, diesel, hybrid, and full-electric or BEV.

During the first six months of the year, the BMW brand sold 842,153 units (down 21.7 percent), the MINI brand 118,862 units (down 31.1 percent) and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars 1,560 units (down 37.6 percent).

However, despite the overall sales volume decline, the number of electrified BMW and MINI vehicles delivered to customers rose to 61,652 units (up 3.4 percent) in the last six months- and is expected to result in further growth in this area in the second half of 2020.