BERLIN: BMW forecast on Wednesday an 8-10% margin for its autos segment in 2023 and said it plans to keep prices at a stable level, after years of dealing with rising costs by passing them onto customers.

The premium carmaker said its transition to battery-electric vehicles was moving faster than planned and that it expects for one in four new sales to be battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) by 2025.

“BMW expects to reach more than 50% BEV share well ahead of 2030,” its statement said.

The carmaker expected the speed of BEV sales growth, which doubled to over 215,000 in 2022, to slow slightly this year to a high double-digit percentage.

But by 2025, one in four new sales should be battery-electric, rising to one in three by 2026, according to Wednesday’s forecast - an ambitious leap from the one in eleven ratio seen last year.

BMW earnings lag some estimates, names new finance chief

The carmaker confirmed preliminary results released last week for 2022, including an 8.6% margin in the autos business on earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of 10.6 billion euros and cash flow of 11.1 billion euros.

Almost half of the latter came from a cash contribution from Chinese joint venture BMW Brilliance Automotive (BBA).

It proposed a dividend to shareholders of 8.50 euros, up from 5.80 a year earlier.