Status: 07/15/2021 9:40 a.m.
Daimler surprised with strong figures in the second quarter: The trend towards large cars is paying off, the lack of chips, which is so stressful for the entire industry, has so far hardly been able to stop the carmaker.
The car and truck manufacturer Daimler earned more than expected in the second quarter, despite the lack of important parts and semiconductors. Thanks to increasing sales and higher prices, the group generated earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of almost 5.2 billion euros, the car company announced.
That was significantly more than industry experts had expected, who had assumed an average of 4.3 billion euros. In the second quarter of the previous year, Daimler had reported an adjusted operating loss of a good 700 million euros and the bottom line was a loss of billions.
A lack of chips sets limits
“We continue to achieve a strong financial performance in all divisions, despite the persistently low availability of semiconductors, which had a negative impact on our production and sales in the second quarter,” said CEO Ola Källenius.
Like numerous car manufacturers around the world, Daimler had to repeatedly stop production in several of its plants and temporarily put employees on short-time work due to the lack of chips. From April to June, the passenger car subsidiary Mercedes-Benz delivered 581,201 vehicles worldwide, 27 percent more than in the same quarter of the previous year, but the delivery bottlenecks for semiconductors limited the growth.
Daimler manages like the competition by installing the scarce chips primarily in high-margin models such as the S-Class. The Stuttgart-based company therefore also identified a “favorable product mix” and “good price enforcement” as the reasons for the increase in profits.
Customers buy big cars
Daimler therefore benefits from the fact that customers are increasingly choosing larger cars and the group can enforce high prices. In addition, Daimler stepped on the brakes even more strongly during the pandemic, which had a positive effect on earnings. Källenius had already launched an austerity program with the loss of tens of thousands of jobs before the Corona crisis.
Daimler did not provide any information on sales or net profit. The company plans to release the final figures on July 21st. The next day, Källenius wants to talk about his plans for electric cars, which are also becoming increasingly important for the Stuttgart company.