BMW (GER:BMW.DE - News), the world's largest premium carmaker, warned that more and more profit-eroding incentives are being offered to sell luxury cars at the moment, adding there are no signs this will change anytime soon.
"What we see with the beginning of the fourth quarter is that the pressure on the pricing front has increased. When it will end is, at the moment, not clear," finance chief Friedrich Eichiner told analysts during a webcast.
BMW does not break out separately the net effect of pricing power on its earnings due to competitive reasons, but the Automobile segment's earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) improved by 3.14 billion euros ($4.12 billion) last year thanks to a combination of balance of volumes, sales mix and pricing.
Eichiner also said efficiency gains would be in the medium to high hundreds of millions of euros this year, compared with 520 million in 2011.
According to Eichiner, BMW's financial services business set aside a risk provision of around 100 million euros last year due to exposure to the Southern European luxury car market. ($1 = 0.7628 euros)
(Reporting by Christiaan Hetzner)
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