FRANKFURT: BMW said on Wednesday that it would step up planned job cuts as it reported a drop in third-quarter profit, hit by fierce competition and falling demand in China, the world’s largest car market.
Chief executive Milan Nedeljkovic said he could not give a figure for the additional cuts but was prepared to make as many as necessary.
“We’ll go as far as our feet will carry us,” Nedeljkovic said during a conference call. “And as far as makes sense for us.”
Collapsing sales in China have led to painful adjustments for Germany’s car industry. Mercedes-Benz is set to restart its own layoff programme, while Volkswagen plans to have cut 120,000 jobs globally across its 10 brands by 2030.
A BMW source told AFP in July that the carmaker was aiming to cut 8,000 jobs by the end of 2027 under a programme then being launched.
Additional cuts could now be brought forward because of strong interest in the latest redundancy scheme, Nedeljkovic said on Wednesday.
“We will be able to complete the programme in a short amount of time,” he said. “This highly positive response to the programme opens up more significant potential to faster streamline our structures.”
In the three months to the end of September, BMW said net profit fell about 15 per cent to 1.45 billion euros ($1.6 billion), while sales dropped almost six per cent to 30.5 billion euros.
Worldwide vehicle deliveries fell 6.3 per cent, dragged down by China, where they plunged 24.8 per cent.
The group, which includes Mini and Rolls-Royce alongside its namesake brand, has pledged to shift more of the supply chain for its Chinese vehicles to China in an effort to regain market share.
Nedeljkovic said BMW was also drawing lessons from its Chinese operations for its business elsewhere in the world, pointing to experience gained in developing driving assistance software with local partner Momenta.
“There’s a very intense exchange we have with our business in China,” he said. “The learning and technology transfer goes in both ways, as far as is legally possible.”
