BMW's earnings report of "delivering 2 million pure electric vehicles by 2025" will reveal the veteran luxury car company's ambitions for the electrification market and the foreshadowing laid in order to win the future.
On March 16, the BMW Group's annual financial report meeting was held in Munich. According to the financial report data released by BMW, in 2021, a number of financial indicators of the BMW Group hit a record high, and the proportion of new energy products was also the highest in history.
At the same time, at the annual meeting, CHIPZE, chairman of the BMW Group, announced that the electrification process of the BMW Group will be accelerated in 2022, and at the same time, the BMW Group will start the transformation and upgrading of global factories.
Profit returns to double digits Brilliance 'consolidated table' boosts revenue growth
In the 2021 fiscal year, the BMW Group successfully achieved various performance targets, with a number of financial indicators such as full-year earnings, pre-tax income and net profit reaching record highs.
According to the data, BMW's total revenue in 2021 was 111.239 billion euros, an increase of 12.4% year-on-year; pre-tax revenue exceeded 16 billion euros, an increase of 207.5% year-on-year; net profit was 12.463 billion euros, an increase of 223.1% year-on-year. At the triple-digit increase, both pretax income and net profit reached new highs.
Among them, in the core automotive business segment, the Group delivered 2.52 million vehicles worldwide in 2021, an increase of 8.4% year-on-year. Automotive revenue climbed sharply to EUR 95,476 million, up 18.1% year-on-year. EBIT margin reached 10.3%. The automotive business's contribution to free cash flow reached EUR 6,354 million at the end of the year, an increase of 87.2% year-on-year.
In the Chinese market, in the whole year of 2021, BMW (including MINI) delivered a total of 846,200 units, an increase of 8.9% year-on-year, accounting for 30% of the total global sales, ranking first in the sales volume of China's luxury car market. The other two first-line luxury brands, Mercedes-Benz and Audi, sold 759,000 and 700,000 vehicles respectively.
"The business development in 2021 proves that the transformation of the BMW Group has begun to bear fruit," Says Chiptzer said. We adhere to the established strategy of delivering the right product to the market at the right time. At the same time, our team works closely together to overcome difficulties. For the BMW Group, radical transformation and beautiful financial performance can go hand in hand. ”
BMW believes that in the challenging 2021, BMW's good performance in a number of financial areas is due to its rich product matrix and closer to the market product pricing.
It is also worth noting that the merger of BMW Brilliance has brought BMW a one-time revenue growth of up to 40%. In February this year, bmw brilliance was completed, and the BMW Group's stake in BMW Brilliance increased from 50% to 75%.
The head of finance of the BMW Group said that with the completion of the contract for BMW Brilliance to increase its holdings in BMW Brilliance, BMW Brilliance will be fully integrated into the financial statements of the BMW Group in 2022, which will bring a one-time positive impact of 7-8 billion euros to BMW, directly increasing the revenue of the automotive division.
But at the same time, BMW said that after deducting the impact of some factors, BMW Brilliance's consolidated statement will not have an impact on the EBIT profit of BMW Group in 2022.
Mass production of 15 pure electric vehicles during the year Simultaneously promote hydrogen fuel cell technology
In the past fiscal year 2021, the BMW Group's global sales of new energy vehicles increased by 70% to more than 320,000 units, accounting for 13% of total sales.
The analysis believes that at present, almost all luxury brands, including BMW, are transforming to electrification. Due to the early introduction of new energy models to the market, BMW's new energy vehicle sales are at the forefront of luxury car brands.
In order to continue this momentum, the BMW Group will accelerate the expansion of its pure electric product lineup.
BMW said that in 2022, the BMW Group will mass-produce and trial-produce 15 pure electric vehicle models, covering about 90% of the market segment. In addition to the innovative BMW iX, innovative BMW i4, BMW iX3 and other models that have already been launched, there are also pure electric models of the BMW 3 Series, BMW 5 Series, BMW X1 and other series. One of the most notable is the innovative pure electric BMW i7 that will debut in the world in April along with the new BMW 7 Series.
"The Innovation BMW iX and The Innovation BMW i4 are widely acclaimed, as evidenced by the strong customer demand in itself. This year, the all-electric BMW i7 will take the BMW electric model to new heights and will be an important part of our continued success and leading change," said Chiptzer. The new BMW 7 Series is the next trump card in our successful growth strategy in the luxury car segment, which will be the first luxury sedan in the BMW luxury segment to offer an internal combustion engine, plug-in hybrid and pure electric drive.
The "next generation" model with the new structure and equipped with the sixth-generation eDrive electric drive system will roll off the production line in 2024.
It is understood that the "new generation" models will have a completely redesigned IT and software architecture, a new generation of high-performance electric drive systems and batteries, and a new sustainable concept throughout the vehicle life cycle, especially the prioritization of reusable materials and the promotion of a circular economy. The sixth-generation eDrive electric drive system combines performance and cost control with new chemical and battery form factors.
With the rapid expansion of its product lineup, the BMW Group expects that sales of electric models will also grow rapidly: by the end of 2025, the BMW Group plans to deliver a total of 2 million pure electric vehicles.
"By 2030, at least half of the total global sales will be pure electric vehicles," Chiptzer said. We are doing everything possible to achieve this ahead of schedule. By then, the annual sales volume of pure electric vehicles will exceed 1.5 million units. Of course, this also depends on the speed of development of charging infrastructure in different parts of the world, as well as the availability of battery-related raw materials,"
According to Chiptzer, in order to ensure the production of existing models, the BMW Group has also made full preparations for the supply of key components. For example, in order to ensure an adequate supply of batteries, the BMW Group has increased the purchase of batteries equipped with the fifth-generation eDrive electric drive system from 12 billion euros to more than 20 billion euros.
By 2030, the BMW Group plans to deliver a total of 10 million pure electric vehicles to customers. At that time, the other three brands of the BMW Group will also be fully electrified: the Rolls-Royce brand will complete the electrification of all products; the BMW Motorrad urban mobility series will be fully electrified; and the MINI brand will also move towards full electrification from the early 1930s.
In addition, as another focus of new energy technology, the BMW Group is steadily promoting the development of hydrogen fuel cell technology, and announced that the electric drive system based on this technology can also be applied to the "new generation" model, becoming another choice for sustainable mobility. This year, the BMW iX5 Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle will also undergo small-scale mass production.
Global factory transformation R & D investment of more than 30 billion yuan
"With the official production of the 'new generation' model in 2025, the BMW Group's production network has also entered a whole new dimension, which we call BMW iFACTORY, and every BMW Group plant is preparing for this," says Chiptzer.
At bmw's annual meeting, a new standard for production networks – BMW iFACTORY – was presented.
It is understood that BMW iFACTORY will provide a global solution for the transformation of production networks in the electric era, and the commodore will be applied to all BMW Group plants worldwide, including three vehicle plants and a powertrain plant at the Shenyang production base.
BMW iFACTORY represents BMW's strategic vision for production: lean, green and digital. Lean – efficiency, precision and a high degree of flexibility, as well as the ability to integrate different drive technologies and vehicle architectures into production – have become key factors in achieving a successful transformation.
Green refers to production through state-of-the-art technology, minimal resource consumption, and circular economy model. The BMW Group aims to reduce the carbon footprint of bicycles in production by 80% compared to 2019 by 2030.
Digitalization, on the other hand, represents the use of data science and artificial intelligence in production, and the integration of the real and virtual worlds in planning and development. This digital approach allows bmw group employees around the world to virtualize connectivity, and they can develop and plan in real time on the same platform.
Dr Nordkovoch, Director of Production at the BMW Group, said: "This is a real change and a response to the metacosm. All BMW Group plants worldwide will follow iFACTORY standards, whether it is the upcoming construction of the debrecen plant in Hungary or the century-old Munich plant in Germany. Lean, green and digital, this is our master plan for the future of production. ”
Construction of the Debrecen plant in Hungary is scheduled to break ground in June this year, and in 26 months the prototype of the Neue KLASSE will roll off the production line here, and in 2025, the "new generation" model will be officially put into production at the plant. With a focus on "lean, green and digital", the BMW Group will systematically develop its global production network to welcome the arrival of the "new generation" models.
At the same time, in order to ensure a steady transition to the new energy era, BMW announced that it will invest more than 30 billion euros in research and development and innovation by 2025, and electric mobility and digitalization will account for the majority of these investments. BMW said at the annual meeting that it will continue to increase investment in research and development in new technologies and maintain an expectation of about 5%.
In 2021, BMW invested 6.299 billion euros in research and development, an increase of 10.7% over the previous year. BMW said that its R&D investment in 2021 is mainly in areas related to new vehicle architectures and electric product offensives, as well as digital products and autonomous driving research and development.
Che Yun Summary:
Back to 2021, under the background of uncertain factors such as chip shortage and repeated epidemics, behind the doubling of the BMW Group's financial report data, it is obviously inseparable from the outbreak of the overall sales potential of the BMW Group in the perfect product lineup in the high-end market.
It is worth mentioning that although the profitability of bmw group is lower than that of Mercedes-Benz group from the financial data, the gap between the two is narrowing. Moreover, in the field of new energy, which symbolizes the future of the car market, the BMW Group has sold 328,000 vehicles in the past year, gradually opening up the gap with Mercedes-Benz's new energy product lineup.
Judging from this annual report, BMW shows a comprehensive development concept. At the product level, the BMW Group adheres to strict product quality control, and the iFACTORY standard is based on sufficient preparation for transformation; in terms of research and development, BMW's R&D expenses are mainly invested in digitalization, sustainability and electrification; in terms of supply chain, BMW's scientific and win-win global supply chain management has proved effective in the context of chip shortage in the car market. Such a development concept is a development concept that runs through the whole chain of production and manufacturing, research and development, and procurement.
Even though the prospects for hydrogen fuel cells are still unknown, BMW said that hydrogen fuel cell technology will increase in the proportion of drive system combinations. This can also be seen as a foreshadowing for BMW to win the future.