BMW Group reports stable 2025 earnings and EV growth

BMW Group reports 2025 earnings above €10bn despite tariff pressure and weaker China sales. The company highlights EV growth, cost cuts and the upcoming NEUE KLASSE models.

BMW Group closed 2025 with resilient results despite mounting tariff pressure, a weak market in China and a tougher global environment for the auto industry. The company kept profit before tax above €10 billion and held its Group EBT margin at 7.7%, unchanged from a year earlier. Net profit again remained above €7 billion, giving BMW the basis to propose a dividend broadly in line with the previous year.

BMW links that stability to a strategy it has been pursuing consistently for years. The group continues to rely on what it calls a technology-neutral approach, keeping several paths open at once: internal combustion engines, plug-in hybrids, battery-electric vehicles and, later on, hydrogen fuel-cell models. For the company, that is not only a matter of product breadth, but also a way to stay balanced while customer demand develops at different speeds across regions.

The sales picture reflects that logic. In 2025, BMW Group delivered 2,463,681 vehicles to customers, slightly above the 2024 level. A 12.5% decline in China was offset by gains in Europe and the Americas. Europe grew by 7.3%, while the Americas were up 5.6%. China, however, remained the main pressure point. BMW and MINI sold 625,527 vehicles there, and the company itself acknowledged that pricing and product measures designed to stabilize transaction prices in that market will continue to weigh on performance, especially in the first half of 2026.

Against that backdrop, electrification remains central to BMW’s position. In 2025, the group sold 442,056 fully electric vehicles, up 3.6% year on year. BEVs accounted for 17.9% of total sales, meaning nearly one in six vehicles delivered by BMW Group was fully electric. Including plug-in hybrids, total electrified deliveries reached 642,071 vehicles, or roughly one quarter of all sales. In Europe, that share was even higher, at around 40%.

That shift also helped BMW meet its emissions targets in Europe. According to the company’s preliminary calculations, average fleet emissions in the EU27+2 region came in at 90.0 g/km WLTP in 2025, down from 99.5 g/km a year earlier. With an individual target of 92.9 g/km, BMW did more than comply. The group also stressed that it achieved this result without pooling and without relying on temporary regulatory flexibility.

The financial details show where BMW preserved stability and where pressure was already visible. Group revenues for the year reached €133.453 billion, down 6.3% from 2024. EBIT fell to €10.186 billion, while profit before tax came in at €10.236 billion. In the Automotive segment, the EBIT margin stood at 5.3%, still within the company’s target corridor of 5% to 7%, but below the previous year’s 6.3%. BMW stated directly that additional tariff effects alone reduced that margin by around 1.5 percentage points in 2025.

Tariffs are also one of the main themes for 2026. BMW expects them to continue weighing on the Automotive business and to cut a further 1.25 percentage points from the segment’s margin. Against that backdrop, the company forecasts an Automotive EBIT margin in a range of 4% to 6% and points to a moderate decline in Group profit before tax this year. At the same time, BMW expects to offset part of the burden through further cost cuts, lower capital expenditure, savings in production and tighter cost discipline. In 2025, that approach had already delivered a visible effect, with total expenses reduced by €2.5 billion.

The product story behind the numbers is equally important. BMW said the main growth drivers included the 5 Series, whose sales rose by more than a quarter, and the X2, which gained 33%. BMW M delivered another record year, the fourteenth in a row, with 213,449 vehicles sold. Among the fully electric models, the i5, iX2 and iX1 all recorded significant growth.

MINI had an especially strong year. The brand lifted sales to 288,278 vehicles, up 17.7%. The Countryman was its top-selling model, while the Aceman, the new Convertible and the fully electric Cooper all contributed to the expansion. More than 105,000 fully electric MINIs were delivered to customers, and BEVs represented over 36% of the brand’s total sales.

Rolls-Royce, meanwhile, almost matched the previous year’s level, with 5,664 deliveries compared with 5,712 a year earlier. Demand was strongest for the Cullinan and the fully electric Spectre, underlining how even the ultra-luxury segment is gradually shifting toward new drivetrain formats.

One of BMW’s main storylines for the near future is the ramp-up of NEUE KLASSE. The company already sees it as a defining step for 2026. After the world premiere of the fully electric iX3 at the IAA in September 2025, demand proved so strong that one in three pre-ordered electric BMWs in Europe is an iX3. The Debrecen plant, where the model is being launched, is already operating in two shifts. For BMW, this is more than the arrival of a new car. It marks the start of the group’s next technological phase, with NEUE KLASSE intended to carry new solutions across the wider portfolio. By 2027, BMW plans to introduce more than 40 new or updated models, including new versions of the 3 Series and X5.

The Debrecen site itself also carries strategic weight. BMW describes it as its first automotive plant designed to operate without fossil fuels in normal production. High-voltage batteries are produced there as well, making the factory a central industrial base for the group’s next generation of electric vehicles.

At the corporate level, BMW is also trying to maintain predictability for shareholders. At the Annual General Meeting on May 13, 2026, the company will propose a dividend of €4.40 per common share and €4.42 per preferred share. The total payout is expected to amount to €2.672 billion, with a payout ratio of 36.6%. At the same time, BMW is continuing a share buyback program of up to €2 billion, due to be completed no later than April 30, 2027. In addition, shareholders are set to vote on a proposed 1:1 conversion of all preferred shares into common voting shares, without any additional payment obligation.

In the end, BMW’s 2025 report reads less like a story of outright expansion and more like a demonstration of resilience under pressure. The group enters 2026 with strong brands, a working electric portfolio, proven cost discipline and a major technology launch ahead. But its own forecast also makes the limits of that resilience clear: tariffs, weakness in China, currency effects and a softer used-car market are all set to remain serious factors in the near term.