BMW aims to build on a profitable 2010

BMW is looking to build upon a strong start to the financial year. Norbert Reihofer, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG has stated the company’s unchanged goal of setting a new earnings record in 2011. He has stated the “aim to deliver more vehicles than ever before.”

Reihofer goes on to explain that BMW has a clear route to sustainable mobility. BMW is launching the BMW i3, a purely electric city car which will be on the market in 2013. This will be followed by the i8 which will be a fuel efficient sports car. These new models will be complemented by more economical combustion engines with the headline Efficient Dynamics technology.

The 2010 financial year was the most successful in the company’s history. This means employees on collective pay-scale agreements will receive an average of €5,840, and the opportunity to take advantage of the employee share programme. Further to this BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce will be hiring a further 2000 new employees over the course of the year.

Some of this success can be attributed to the quality of vehicles that BMW produces. The renowned ADAC in Germany puts BMW at the top of its reliability statistics. MINI took first place in the small car category, while the 1 series did the same in the small car category and the X3 brought home the honours in the middle class category.

In the Automotive segment, first-quarter revenues rose by 34.7% to €14,373 million and profit before tax improved to €1,605 million from €220 million in 2010. Strong sales growth mirrors the financial result, for the year to the end of April BMW Group achieved a new sales high of 519,944 vehicles – an increase of 20.4%.The success of the last year has prompted BMW to increase its dividend to €1.30 per share of common stock and €1.32 per share of preferred stock – the highest it has ever been.