AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)08/04 Report--

A few days ago, BMW Group released its financial results for the first half of 2024. According to the report, the total revenue of BMW Group's automobile business in the first half of the year was 63.009 billion euros, which was basically the same as that of 62.898 billion euros in the same period last year. Although overall income was roughly the same as in the same period last year, its pre-tax profit fell 14.2 per cent compared with the same period last year. Data show that BMW's pre-tax profit in the first half of the year was 8.023 billion euros, compared with 9.351 billion euros in the same period last year.

In terms of sales, BMW delivered 1.213 million new cars (including BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce) in the global market in the first half of 2024, down 0.1 per cent from a year earlier. Of these, BMW brand sales totaled 1.096 million, up 2.3 per cent year-on-year, while the other two major brands declined, while Rolls-Royce fell 11.4 per cent and the mini fell 18.8 per cent.

In terms of the global market, BMW sold 460800 vehicles in Europe in the first half, up 2.6 per cent from the same period last year. The UK market was BMW's largest growth market, with 16.4 per cent year-on-year growth; in other markets, BMW also achieved growth in North America, with sales of 230100 vehicles, up 2.0 per cent year-on-year, and 188800 vehicles in the US market, up 1.4 per cent year-on-year.

The Chinese market is the market with the largest decline in BMW Group sales. In the first half of the year, BMW delivered 494600 new cars in the Asian market, down 3.6 per cent from a year earlier, of which 376400 were delivered in China, down 4.3 per cent from a year earlier. Of course, despite the decline in sales in china, it is still BMW's largest single market in the world, accounting for 31% of BMW's total global sales. As for the reasons for the decline in sales in the Chinese market, BMW and its peers are under pressure in key markets, where local carmakers are winning market share with lower-cost electric vehicles, forcing its European competitors to cut prices sharply. "

Since the beginning of this year, the price war in the automobile industry has spread to the luxury car field, and luxury brands, including BMW, have been forced to join the price war, and the terminal market prices of many models under the brand have fallen sharply, resulting in many 4S stores selling cars at a loss.

At the end of May this year, BMW sent a letter to all dealers and stores saying that in view of the market background and the huge impact brought by domestic brands, BMW decided to issue a number of substantial subsidy relief policies for BMW 4S stores, which are intended to help dealers cope with short-term difficulties and ease business pressure. After the introduction of the policy, the prices of many BMW models have plummeted, mainly i3, ix3 and other pure electric series, which can now be bought at less than 200000. However, traditional luxury brands selling cars at reduced prices have failed to stimulate sales growth in the end market. Since the end of June, BMW has gradually pulled out of the price war. BMW China said that in the second half of the year, BMW will focus on business quality and support dealers in the Chinese market.

Undeniably, the price war does bring a lot of pressure to dealers, 4S stores almost fall into a vicious circle of losing money to sell cars. Not only that, price sales also hurt the value of the brand. BMW-Benz Audi, which once represented luxury, has gradually declined, and its market share has begun to be eroded by independent new energy brands.

At present, the supply of the automobile market is sufficient. Under the environment of the global economic slowdown, the reason why the multinational automobile enterprises appear the phenomenon of "increasing income but not increasing profits" is, on the one hand, because the early profit level of some automobile enterprises is relatively high, and it is difficult to continue to achieve higher growth in the stock competition of the automobile industry; on the other hand, the decline of bicycle sales prices and the strengthening of sales promotion have also brought certain pressure on the profit level of multinational automobile enterprises.

In addition to BMW, Volkswagen, Renault Group, Tesla, Ford, Nissan and other auto companies all showed "income without profit", while Stellantis Group showed a double drop in revenue and profit, while Toyota Motor and Hyundai Motor achieved double increase in revenue and profit.

At present, the whole luxury car market is facing the challenges of declining sales and electric transformation, especially the brand premium of luxury brands has been difficult to transmit to electric vehicle products in the past years, and the terminal price of electric vehicle products launched by BBA has plunged sharply. According to the plan, the new generation BMW model will be launched on the global market in 2025, and at least six models will be put into production in the next two years. The new car will be equipped with a new electronic and electrical architecture, a new user interface and human-computer interaction concept, and a new high-performance electric drive battery system.

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