AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)05/16 Report--

Affected by COVID-19 's epidemic, the global automobile market seems to have fallen into a state of "shutdown" since 2020, so that the sales and performance of the world's major car companies have suffered a sharp decline, including BBA, as a first-tier luxury brand, and according to its performance for a time.

Although China's car market has been first hit by the COVID-19 epidemic since early 2020, sales have been significantly affected by the growing share of first-tier luxury brands in the market. According to the first quarter performance, BBA sales have suffered varying degrees of decline, of which Mercedes-Benz is slightly better than BMW and Audi brands.

Specifically, Mercedes-Benz sold 470600 vehicles in the first quarter of 2020, down 15% from a year earlier and the smallest decline among the three companies. Due to the epidemic in the domestic market in the first quarter, Beijing Mercedes-Benz won the favor of many consumers in the form of "price for volume", so that the Chinese market declined slightly compared with the same period last year, which is obviously better than BMW and Audi brands.

Nevertheless, its market in China also suffered the worst decline in the first quarter, falling 20.3 per cent to 139000 vehicles from a year earlier, while the US market was affected by the epidemic later, making it the best-selling luxury brand in the US, down only 4.8 per cent to 67700 vehicles from a year earlier. As a result of the shutdown in Europe since March, sales in the European market fell 15.9 per cent to 189000, second only to China.

To this end, the decline in sales in various markets around the world is bound to have a certain impact on Mercedes-Benz revenue. The data show. Mercedes-Benz's passenger cars and light commercial vehicles generated a total of 23.196 billion euros (177.49 billion yuan), down 4% from a year earlier, and profit before interest and tax was 510 million euros, down 55% from a year earlier. It can be said that the decline in profits is serious. For example, Beijing Mercedes-Benz sales recovery is considerable, but the gradual decline in profit margins, Beijing Mercedes-Benz has not made much profit. In addition, for the reasons for the sharp decline in Mercedes-Benz profits, including the company's cost of sales, research and development and non-capitalized development costs have increased.

Compared with Mercedes-Benz brand, BMW brand sales also showed a significant decline, or even greater than Mercedes-Benz. According to the data, BMW (including BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce) sold 477100 cars, down 20.6 per cent from a year earlier. Among them, the BMW brand is also much lower than the same period last year, falling 20.1% to 411800.

In response, the BMW brand also said that its overall sales performance was good in January this year, but sales declined significantly in February, especially in the Chinese market, until a further decline in March, so that it was significantly affected in the first quarter of this year.

However, BMW's profit before interest and tax rose to 229 million euros (1.759 billion yuan) in the first quarter of this year, up 174% from a year earlier. In such an environment, the BMW Group can still have such achievements, it can be said to be very outstanding.

The increase in profits was mainly due to the payment of 1.4 billion euros of EU antitrust fines by BMW last year, which led to a low base in the same period last year and also benefited from businesses such as financial services, which led to positive growth in BMW's overall operating income in the first quarter.

Some analysts said that the growth of BMW Group's operating revenue in the first quarter shows that a mature car company should not have only one profitable business, but should establish a sound business system to ensure the overall operation.

Compared with former Mercedes-Benz and BMW, Audi performed poorly in the first quarter of this year, with sales and profits falling sharply. Among them, Audi (including Audi and Lamborghini brands) sold about 354900 cars in the first quarter of this year, down 20.99% from the same period last year. Among them, Audi brand sales of about 352900 units, down 21.07% from the same period last year, a greater decline. Due to the small size of Lamborghini, it did not have much impact on Audi.

In terms of revenue, its auto business's operating income in the first quarter of this year was 12.454 billion euros, down about 10% from a year earlier, while Audi's operating profit in the first quarter was only 15 million euros, down 1.05 billion euros from a year earlier. In this regard, Audi said that sales profits have declined as a result of the epidemic crisis.

However, Arnold Antritz, Audi's director in charge of finance, said that Audi's current financial situation is stable. In order to successfully tide over the epidemic crisis, Audi is currently focused on ensuring cash flow and reducing short-term expenditure, but does not affect long-term project investment.

Although BBA's local plant has gradually resumed production, as the entire European car market nearly stopped in April, it will take time for the supply chain and sales to recover, and it is speculated that the impact will be greater in the second quarter than in the second quarter. To this end, various car companies have hoped to achieve a significant recovery through the Chinese market to seek more market share, in order to achieve a balance of corporate performance.

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