The German carmakers are leaving the corona crisis behind them and are making healthy profits again.
Now Daimler has presented figures that were higher than expected.
Stuttgart - The car and truck manufacturer Daimler earned more than expected despite the lack of important parts.
The earnings before interest and taxes adjusted for special effects were 5.42 billion euros in the past second quarter, as the Dax group announced surprisingly.
Experts had assumed 4.3 billion euros.
In the same period of the previous year, the Stuttgart-based company reported an adjusted operating loss of a good 700 million euros due to the collapse of the car markets in the pandemic, and the bottom line was even a billion-dollar loss.
Strong financial performance in all divisions
"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, according to the announcement. Although the industry is concerned with the shortage of electronic chips, it has so far hardly had any negative impact on the profits of German car companies. Volkswagen recently reported strong profits in day-to-day business. The car manufacturers make do with the fact that they prefer to equip more profitable models with the scarce parts.
Daimler benefits from the fact that more and more customers are choosing larger cars and the group can enforce high prices.
Källenius had already launched an austerity program before the Corona crisis with the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.
In the pandemic, Daimler stepped on the brakes on costs even more, which is still having an impact.
In addition, the company sold 581,201 cars from the lucrative Mercedes-Benz brand to customers worldwide between April and the end of June this year - an increase of 27 percent compared to the same period in the previous year.
Better than expected
Both the Mercedes-Benz division with passenger cars and vans, as well as trucks and buses, performed better than generally thought on the stock market.
However, Mercedes was no longer as profitable as at the beginning of the year: The adjusted operating margin was only 12.8 percent.
In trucks and buses, Daimler achieved an adjusted operating margin of 8.3 percent this time with the market recovery for heavy commercial vehicles.
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-based company.
dpa
