Thursday February 18, 2021
"Stress test" passed
Daimler ticks off the corona crisis
Daimler ends the tricky year 2020 with a strong profit increase: The car manufacturer is successfully maneuvering itself through the turmoil of the corona pandemic. The goals for the current year are almost back to pre-crisis levels.
After the Corona year, Daimler is setting itself significantly larger goals again. For the current year, CEO Ola Källenius once again promised the returns that the shareholders of the car and truck manufacturer had been used to for years – before the high costs of entering into electromobility and, above all, the expensive diesel contaminated sites before Corona Driven profits into the basement.
"The year 2020 was a stress test for almost every company in almost every industry," said Källenius. But despite the pandemic, it has been proven that you can drive the transformation on your own, said Källenius. The group has reduced costs and has become significantly more profitable, especially in the second half of the year.
In 2020, Daimler posted a bottom line profit of 3.6 billion euros attributable to the shareholders. That was 1.2 billion euros or 50 percent more than in the previous year. Without the so-called deduction of minority shares, 4.0 billion euros would remain – an increase of 48 percent. In contrast, sales fell by 11 percent compared to 2019 to 154.3 billion euros. With 2.84 million vehicles sold, sales were also 15 percent below the previous year's level. The group plans to distribute around 1.4 billion euros in dividends to shareholders. That would be 1.35 euros per share, 45 cents more than in the previous year.
For 2021, Källenius promised significant leaps in both sales and revenue as well as the operating result. "We are confident that if market conditions remain like this, we can maintain our positive momentum," he said. As a result, the Mercedes-Benz passenger car and vans division should achieve an adjusted return on sales of 8 to 10 percent this year. The Stuttgart-based company is expecting an operating margin of 6 to 7 percent for the recently badly shaken trucks and buses. The goals essentially correspond to what Daimler – at that time still in a slightly different corporate structure – had set itself in normal times.
The group only got its current structure in 2019. Now it should be changed again. In future, the entire business is to be distributed between just two independent listed companies – Mercedes-Benz for cars and vans and Daimler Truck for trucks and buses. Daimler AG will disappear in the long term. The two companies could thus concentrate better on their respective strengths and develop more potential, emphasized Källenius again.
.