Daimler 3Q Earnings Grew Despite Chip Shortage Hurting Production, Sales -- Update
29 Oktober 2021 - 12:34PM
Dow Jones News
By Kim Richters
Daimler AG said Friday that earnings for the third quarter
increased despite the semiconductor shortage that hurt production
and vehicle sales.
Net profit for the quarter rose to 2.47 billion euros ($2.89
billion), from EUR2.05 billion a year earlier, the German premium
car maker said. Earnings before interest and taxes increased 17% to
EUR3.58 billion and adjusted for items such as restructuring
measures, EBIT rose 4% to EUR3.61 billion.
Quarterly revenue edged lower to EUR40.08 billion from EUR40.28
billion.
Daimler said a better revenue quality with an improved product
mix and good pricing has helped offset considerably lower
production and vehicle sales due to the chip shortage that has been
affecting global auto production for months.
At a conference call about its third-quarter results, the auto
maker's Chief Financial Officer Harald Wilhelm said Daimler hopes
to continue the pricing and revenue-quality trend. "There are
levers to do so," he said.
A tight control of fixed costs also helped results, the car
maker said. Mr. Wilhelm said Daimler had reduced fixed costs by
around 15% versus 2019 levels so far. He said this was a good start
but they needed to go down further.
Looking ahead, Daimler said it continues to expect group revenue
and EBIT in 2021 to be significantly above prior-year levels.
For Mercedes-Benz cars, the company cut its outlook to slightly
lower vehicle sales in 2021 compared with 2020, down from a
previous forecast of prior-year level sales. Mercedes-Benz vans
should post vehicle sales at prior-year level, lowered from a
previous outlook of sales significantly above the ones in 2020, the
company said. Daimler nevertheless kept the margin target for the
division that includes cars and vans, expecting it to reach
adjusted return on sales of between 10% to 12% this year.
Daimler said it expects component bottlenecks and supply-chain
constraints to continue to affect global auto production in the
fourth quarter. While the chip shortage should improve in the last
quarter of the year compared with the third, it should remain an
issue in 2022, it said.
After opening slightly lower, shares in Daimler were trading
1.3% higher at EUR84.95 at 0941 GMT.
Write to Kim Richters at kim.richters@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 29, 2021 06:19 ET (10:19 GMT)
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