BMW hits rough patch as Chinese buyers pick local electric cars instead
German car giant BMW shows massive drop in profits as Chinese customers switch to home-grown brands. Company faces multi-front challenge: dropping sales worldwide brake system recall and tough EV market
In a tough-to-swallow report from 3rd quarter 2024‚ BMW posted a mega-drop in profits - down to €476m from last years numbers (thats an 84% fall)
The German car-maker got hit with a triple-whammy: overall deliveries fell 13%‚ Chinese sales crashed 30% (which is super-bad since China makes up 1/3rd of their business)‚ and they had to fix 1.5m cars due to brake issues
Chinese buyers are now going crazy for home-made electric cars; companies like BYD are selling super-cheap EVs (under £10k) with high-tech stuff built-in. European car-makers just cant keep up with these prices and features
The whole German car gang is having a hard time:
- Volkswagen seeing sales drop
- Mercedes-Benz losing market share
- Local Chinese brands taking over
This past quarter‚ we faced a series of extraordinary challenges
Even though BMWs electric cars like i4 and iX1 did ok with a 10% bump in sales; the companys total revenue dropped to €32.4bn - thats down 16% from last time. With recent political changes in US market experts think car-makers might face even more problems ahead due to possible new trade rules
