BMW Group is committed to play a key role in tomorrow’s mobility and is investing substantially in new technologies. Against this background, the Group can report after the first three quarters that it remains firmly on track to complete a highly successful financial year 2017. Through sustainable profitability, the BMW Group is strengthening the position of Germany as a center of expertise and driver of innovation for tomorrow’s mobility and technologies.
The BMW Group is currently investing 400 million euros in the large-scale expansion of its Research and Innovation center in Munich to create an innovative working environment for around 5,000 employees by 2019. Additionally, from 2021 onwards, the BMW iNEXT will set new standards in terms of electric mobility, automated driving and connectivity.
BMW Group has shown its clear technological focus on electric mobility, digitalization and autonomous driving. By 2025, the BMW Group intends to offer 25 models across all of its brands, featuring either all-electric propulsion or plug-in hybrid solutions. The fifth generation of storage and powertrain technology is set to provide up to 700 kilometers of range for all-electric vehicles and up to 100 kilometers for plug-in hybrid models.
Some forty new and updated models of the Group’s three premium brands, BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce, will be brought to market during the current and the following year. Through the addition of vehicles with great emotional appeal within the upper-premium segment such as the new BMW 8 Series, the BMW Group aims to achieve significant volume growth in this segment by 2020. The segment also includes the BMW 7 Series and the future BMW X7. This forms part of the company’s strategy of strengthening the performance side in order to ensure long-term business success.
The BMW Group is confident of achieving its projected targets for the current financial year – largely thanks to its strong brands, its attractive product portfolio and the expectation that international automobile markets will continue their generally positive trend. These favorable factors are offset by high levels of upfront expenditure for key new technologies, intense competition and rising personnel expenses. The global political and economic environment is expected to remain unstable.
The EBIT margin for the automotive segment in 2017 is forecast to remain within the target range of between 8 and 10%. With its premium brands, the BMW Group is confident it will remain the world’s leading provider of premium mobility in 2017.
The BMW Group forecasts a slight increase in revenues in the automotive segment. Forecasts for the current year are based on the assumption that global political and economic conditions will not change significantly.