[But Panke acknowledged that the Mini's profit margins would be lower than that of other BMW cars in its first life cycle. BMW model life cycles are generally seven years.] We will not hit our usual profitability targets in the Mini's first life cycle, ... But we won't lose any money either. |
[Not everyone is optimistic about hybrids.] Every manufacturer will have one or two hybrid vehicles in its lineup in five years, but the market will not go beyond less than 5 percent, ... But the real challenge is to reduce the fuel consumption of the standard engine. Hybrid is not a substitute for that. |
Currency factors, high raw material prices and intense competition are all having an adverse impact. |
Despite the big public debate right now, it will just be a niche technology, |
If each of us would have done it on our own we would never have reached the volume needed to make it economical, |
Our aim is to increase (car) sales volume yet again and once again set a new record. |
Prices have gone up in the U.S. but for us at least we have not seen a change in buyer behavior, |
The adverse external factors -- unfavorable exchange rates, high raw-material prices and intense competition -- which we reported from the very beginning of the year have been largely offset by increased sales volume and internal efficiency improvement measures. |
The current exchange rate is an improvement, but it's still a challenge for us. |
We also expect earnings to increase in 2006 at an operating level, excluding the exceptional gain from the exchangeable bond on Rolls Royce shares. |
We are thus heading for the best year in our corporate history. |
We assume that BMW Group will remain on this path of growth in 2006. |
We expect the BMW Group to remain on growth course in the financial year 2006. Our aim is to increase sales volume yet again and once again set a new record. |
We have a comparable situation as we did have in 2005. The exchange rates are not worse, the raw material prices are not worse, so we basically have the same challenge, but we managed to cope and to compensate (for) most of those challenges in 2005. |
We intend to make 2006 the most successful year in our company's history, both in terms of unit sales and our operating earnings. |