The FINANCIAL — BMW Group can look ahead with confidence to the current financial year. Group profit before tax and sales volume are both expected to rise to new high levels, according to The BMW Group.
The planned growth in sales volume should also be reflected in group profit before tax (2013: € 7,913 million): "We expect group profit before tax to rise significantly in the current year despite ongoing volatile business conditions", continued Reithofer. The pace at which earnings increase will however be affected by high levels of expenditure for new technologies and by rising personnel expenses.
Despite substantial levels of investment in new technologies, the Automotive segment will again strive in 2014 to achieve an EBIT margin within a corridor of 8 to 10% (2013: 9.4%). Tailwind will also come from the 16 new models and model revisions, which the BMW Group plans to launch in the current year, according to The BMW Group.
Despite challenging conditions on international motorcycle markets, sales of the Motorcycles segment are forecast to be slightly up on the previous year (2013: 115,215 units), not least due to the contribution expected from the new motorcycles presented at the autumn trade fairs (the R nineT, S 1000 R, R 1200 RT, R 1200 GS Adventure and K 1600 GTL Exclusive).
The Financial Services segment is expected to also remain on growth course in 2014. As a consequence of growth-related investments, the return on equity is likely to decrease slightly (2013: 20.2%), but still surpass the BMW Group's minimum required level of 18%.
The forecasts for the current year are based on the assumption that political and economic conditions remain stable in 2014, according to The BMW Group.
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