"Although the pace of growth on international car markets is currently showing signs of slackening, the BMW Group's performance will remain positively on track," the carmaker said on Thursday. BMW said it still expects 2011 pretax profit to rise significantly from a year earlier, with vehicle sales of more than 1.6 million vehicles, and an automobiles segment earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) as a percentage of sales of more than 10 percent. In the third quarter, the segment's EBIT margin widened to 11.9 percent from 8.1 percent a year earlier. BMW also said it still aims to reach an EBIT margin of 8-10 percent in 2012. Third-quarter pretax profit jumped 21 percent to 1.64 billion euros ($2.26 billion), above the 1.48 billion euros average analyst estimate in a Reuters poll. It echoed rivals in saying it expected demand for cars in Western Europe to stagnate for the full year 2011. "Germany is the only one of the five major Western European markets that will achieve steady growth. By contrast, the markets in France, Great Britain, Italy and Spain will all contract." Daimler AG and Volkswagen AG last week gave downbeat forecasts for demand in Western Europe, adding to concerns that the euro zone crisis could hurt earnings for months to come.