Germany (Reuters) – Despite a local price war in the electric vehicle (EV) market and generally weak demand, BMW plans to sell more cars in China this year, the luxury automaker’s chief financial officer (CFO) said at the IAA auto show in Munich.
Walter Mertl told Reuters in his first interview since taking over as finance head in May that BMW had been able to grow in China by 3.7% in the first half, faster than the world’s largest car market overall, and that he expected this trend to continue.
Regarding China, Mertl stated, “We are assuming and we are seeing this right now, that we will sell more this year than last year.” He also noted that the price war was primarily hurting the less expensive parts of the auto market, where BMW is not present.
As the economy sputtered and the housing market remained in a prolonged recession, China’s passenger vehicle sales declined for a second month in a row in July. Government support programmes and discounts also failed to entice people leery of purchasing automobiles.
General Motors and Volkswagen joined a new round of price reductions in the summer, following price reductions initiated by Tesla in early 2023 that expanded to many other brands in China.
BMW has increased its group vehicle sales projection for 2023 and stated that it anticipates strong growth, which is defined as growth of between 5% and 9.9%. Vehicle sales dropped to over 2.4 million in 2022, down 4.8%, and to 791,985 in China, down 6.4%.
According to Mertl, there will be a brief decline in demand due to the phase-out of awards in Germany intended to promote electric vehicles. But after that, everything will carry on as usual.
BMW, which on Saturday unveiled information about its new electric “Neue Klasse” platform, intends to increase the proportion of EV sales in the overall car market from 9% in 2022 to 15% in 2023 and 20% in 2024.