The car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz performed weaker at the start of the year due to problems in the supply chains and model changes. The decline in sales of lucrative top models in particular had a significant impact on profits in the first quarter. Only in the second half of the year will the sales mix shift towards more expensive cars and provide a boost, as the Stuttgart-based company announced. The management around boss Ola Källenius saw no reason to deviate from the annual forecasts.
CFO Harald Wilhelm spoke of a “challenging quarter”. Sales fell by 4.4 percent to 35.9 billion euros in the first quarter of the year. Earnings before interest and taxes fell by almost 30 percent to 3.86 billion euros. In the most important passenger car division, the operating profit margin before interest and taxes, adjusted for special effects, fell surprisingly significantly by 5.8 percentage points to 9.0 percent.
Management had already warned of a weak start. Mercedes sold 462,978 cars in the first three months, 8 percent less than a year earlier. Price enforcement remained at a high level. However, fewer expensive cars were sold. In addition, delivery bottlenecks with 48-volt batteries, for which Mercedes had already promised improvement, were a burden. Overall, sales levels should have marked the lowest point in the first quarter, it was said.
The bottom line is that Mercedes made around a quarter less consolidated profit at 3.03 billion euros. The car manufacturer confirmed the annual forecasts. There is still a certain amount of uncertainty, the DAX group said. When it comes to passenger cars, there are signs of easing of the current delivery bottlenecks for the GLC and E-Class models.