PARIS — BMW reported Tuesday that second-quarter net profit fell 76 percent as it sold fewer vehicles. But the German luxury automaker said that it had begun to see hints of stabilization in the market.
Bayerische Motoren Werke said it sold 18.1 percent fewer vehicles in the April-June period compared to a year earlier. Net profit was €121 million, or $174 million, as revenue slid 10.9 percent to €13 billion.
“Despite some tentative positive signals, a lasting and wide-ranging recovery is not yet in sight,” Norbert Reithofer, the chief executive, said Tuesday in Munich, where the company is based.
The automaker said it sold 338,190 cars in the second quarter as sales of its BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce brands all fell. BMW motorcycle sales declined 14.7 percent to 29,742 units.
BMW noted that overall car sales in some markets continued to show double-digit declines, and it predicted the United States, Japan, Britain and continental Europe would see “several years of declining passenger car registration figures before the markets stabilize at a low level.”
BMW’s North American market sales fell 27.1 percent from a year earlier, while European market sales fell 18.1 percent.
But it said the second quarter represented an improvement from the first three months of the year, as its sales volume decreased at a slightly slower rate. In June, it noted, it sales volumes were equal to or even above year-earlier levels in several markets, including mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, which drove Asian market sales up 1.9 percent.
The company said it was unable to offer earnings guidance for the rest of the year because of the tremendous uncertainty in the auto market. However, deliveries to customers are “expected to stop the downwards trend registered in the first six months of the year.”
BMW’s German rival Daimler, maker of Mercedes-Benz cars, last week posted a second-quarter net loss of €1.1 billion, but it also predicted that its business would pick up in the second half.
Auto sales in the United States and several European countries, including France and Germany, have been supported in recent months by so-called “Cash for Clunkers” programs in which governments offer incentives for consumers to scrap inefficient older cars. But analysts say those programs have mostly benefited the lower end of the market, rather than the luxury segment, where cars can be priced over $100,000.
The company cut its worldwide workforce to 98,261 employees by the end of the second quarter, down 7.3 percent from a year earlier.
Shares of BMW, which have gained 52 percent this year, slipped 0.4 percent in Frankfurt morning trading.By DAVID JOLLY
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