BMW profits slump

FRANKFURT AM MAIN: German luxury carmaker BMW reported Thursday a plunge in net profits for 2020 as coronavirus shutdowns closed dealerships and sapped sales in the early days of the pandemic.

The Munich-based company reported annual net profits of just under 3.9 billion euros ($4.6 billion), a 23-percent drop on 2019, it said in a statement.

Revenues at the group, which also includes the Mini and Rolls Royce brands, fell five percent to 99 billion euros, it said in a statement.

Most of the damage was done in the first half of the year, when governments around the world imposed restrictions to slow the spread of Covid-19, leaving showrooms closed and disrupting factory lines.

A relaxing of restrictions later on helped BMW to pick up “growth momentum” in recent months, said chief financial officers Nicolas Peter, putting the group “in a favourable starting position to make 2021 a more profitable year”.

Overall, the group delivered just over 2.3 million cars to customers globally in 2020, down from 2.5 million a year earlier.