Endless waves: reduce the amount of profits, BBA a quarterly report to welcome the "opening red"

Compared with the fourth quarter of last year, although the sales volume of BBA's automobile business in the first quarter of this year still declined, the decline rate was significantly narrowed, and the growth rate of operating income was fully positive, continuing the trend of reducing the amount of profits, highlighting their strong anti-risk ability and the effectiveness of the cost reduction measures that continued to be promoted.

In addition to the merger table and business sales, the biggest highlight of the BBA quarterly report comes from the significant increase in electric vehicle sales, the continuous breakthrough in the field of electrification, and the supporting effect on the performance of BBA is becoming more and more obvious, and the technical strength shown by this will also lay the foundation for it to continue to lead the luxury car market in the electric era.

Recently, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, audi (BBA) have successively announced the first quarter of 2022 financial reports. Under the influence of unfavorable factors such as the epidemic, "lack of core" and high raw material prices, the three BBA brands still achieved strong performance, continuing the trend of reducing the amount of profit since the fourth quarter of last year.

Compared with the fourth quarter of last year, although the sales volume of BBA's automobile business in the first quarter of this year still declined, the decline rate was significantly narrowed, and the growth rate of operating income was fully positive, highlighting their strong anti-risk ability and the effectiveness of the cost reduction measures that continued to be promoted.

In contrast, in the first quarter, BMW maintained a leading position in sales and revenue, Mercedes-Benz led the EBIT, and Audi led in the return on sales. It is worth noting that BMW and BMW Brilliance, Audi and Bentley have played a big role in their quarterly reports.

"The data for the first three months benefited from the full integration of our Chinese joint venture BMW Brilliance, which is an important strategic move for us." BMW Group Chairman Chiptzer said. According to the data, BMW Brilliance has contributed 3.3 billion euros in revenue to the BMW Group since February, pushing the revenue of BMW's automotive division to a significant increase of 26.726 billion euros in the first quarter, and the return on sales has reached the upper limit of the target range of 8.9%.

For Audi, Bentley Motors, which was incorporated for the first time, contributed 813 million euros in revenue and 170 million euros in operating profit in the first quarter; At the same time, the valuation effect of raw material hedging (especially nickel and aluminum) has generated a profit of 1.2 billion euros. In contrast to Audi's reliance on the synergies of the Volkswagen Group, Mercedes-Benz has continuously adjusted its internal structure, selling its own retail business in Canada and partially selling grand Prix, which generated a revenue of 918 million euros for its first quarter report.

Courtesy of the new BMW i3 enterprise

In addition to the merger table and business sales, the biggest highlight of the BBA quarterly report comes from the significant increase in electric vehicle sales, and the continuous breakthrough in the field of electrification is becoming more and more obvious to support the performance of BBA. In the first quarter, BMW's electric vehicle sales reached 89,669 units, an increase of 28% year-on-year, and the sales of pure electric vehicles doubled to 35,289 units. Among them, BMW iX3 sales reached 11,200 units, an increase of nearly 4 times year-on-year. "This year, we already have 8 electric models on the road, and many more are ready. Including pre-production vehicles, 15 electric models will be produced this year, which will allow us to get the pure electric option in around 90% of the market segment. Ziptzer said.

Mercedes-Benz's first-quarter electric vehicle sales increased by 19% year-on-year to 74,000 units. Recently, the Mercedes-Benz VISION EQXX concept car set a new record of 1008km of pure electric vehicle driving on a single charge in Germany. In Mercedes-Benz's view, the technical solution adopted by the car is a milestone in the history of electric vehicle development, and will make it further on the road of "pilot electric drive" strategy. In the first quarter of Audi, the sales of pure electric vehicles increased by 66.2% year-on-year to 24,236 units.

Mercedes-Benz VISION EQXX concept car courtesy of the company

While vigorously promoting electrification, digitalization is also an important area for BBA transformation and change. On May 6, Mercedes-Benz announced the launch of drivePilot, the L3 level autonomous driving assistance system, making it the first car manufacturer in the world to obtain international effective certification for conditional autonomous driving. Bmw, the new BMWi3 that rolled off the production line at the Shenyang Lida plant on May 5 can also be equipped with an automatic driving system, and BMW is also cooperating with Qualcomm and Ansys to develop next-generation autonomous driving technology and simulation software. Audi unveiled the urbansphere pure electric MPV concept car on April 19, which is designed for L4 autonomous driving in partnership with Volkswagen software division CARIAD.

Image courtesy of the Audi urbansphere concept car

At present, some new power brands such as Tesla can be described as the limelight in the field of new energy, and there is no lack of views that traditional luxury car giants such as BBA may become "Nokia" in the electric era. What should be seen is that with a century of car manufacturing heritage, BBA, which has made up its mind, is constantly accelerating the pace of electrification and digitization. Especially in the face of the current challenges, it can still continue to invest in new technologies and new products, highlighting its strong system capabilities and risk management and control capabilities, and the technical strength it shows will also lay the foundation for it to continue to lead the luxury car market in the electric era.

For the uncertain 2022, BMW expects that the commodity market situation will remain tense, the "lack of core" problem will not see improvement until at least the second half of this year, and it is expected that the annual car delivery volume will be the same as last year, and the EBIT margin will still be in the range of 7%-9%; Mercedes-Benz expects car sales to grow slightly, with adjusted returns on sales at a higher level between 11.5% and 13%." Audi expects to deliver 1.8 million to 1.9 million vehicles this year, generate revenues of 62 billion to 65 billion euros, and the return on sales operations is expected to decline by 9% to 11%. (China Economic Network reporter Guo Tao)