BERLIN — BMW is forecasting an 8 to 10 percent margin for its automotive segment in 2023 and said it plans to keep prices at a stable level, after years of dealing with rising costs by passing them onto customers.
The premium carmaker said its transition to full-electric vehicles was moving faster than planned and that it expects for one in four new sales to be EVs by 2025.
“BMW expects to reach more than 50 percent BEV share well ahead of 2030,” it said in a statement Wednesday.
The carmaker expected the increase in EV sales, which doubled to over 215,000 in 2022, to slow slightly this year.
But by 2025, one in four new sales should be battery-electric, rising to one in three by 2026, according to Wednesday’s forecast — an ambitious leap from the one in 11 ratio seen last year.
The carmaker confirmed preliminary results released last week for 2022, including an 8.6 percent margin in the autos business on earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of 10.6 billion euros and cash flow of 11.1 billion euros.
Almost half of the latter came from a cash contribution from Chinese joint venture BMW Brilliance Automotive (BBA). BMW has fully consolidated the joint venture into its balance sheet after increasing its share to 75 percent from 50 percent last February.
It proposed a dividend to shareholders of 8.50 euros, up from 5.80 a year earlier.