9:25 am, September 2, 2022
BMW Park Lane has booked a £4.9m loss for 2021, blaming the semiconductor shortage.
Results filed with Companies House show the BMW Group UK-owned dealer – which sells BMW, Mini and BMW Motorrad brands – finished the year improving slightly on the pre-tax loss of £5.2m in 2020.
Park Lane Limited’s turnover dropped by 9.4 per cent to £261.8m from £288.8m the year before.
Gross profit, meanwhile, fell by 8.4 per cent £15.5m from £17m, although operational costs decreased by seven per cent from £21.5m in 2020 to £20m in 2021.
The accounts note that sales of BMWs fell from 7,201 cars in 2020 to 5,879 in 2021, Mini sales decreased by nearly 27 per cent to 1,734 cars in 2021 (2,363 in 2020), while Motorrad motorbike sales fell by 2.2 per cent to 578 units (591 in 2020).
The company put the slump in sales down to global supply chain challenges and a shortage of semiconductors.
Chris Learmonth, managing director, said: ‘There are still a number of factors associated with the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on the economy that resulted in a material adverse effect on the profitability of the company in 2021 although to a lesser extent than the previous year.
‘The global semiconductor shortage, an issue that has affected the entire automotive industry for the last year, has meant many of the production sites have been making some short term adjustments to the production schedules. In turn this impacted customer orders.
He added: ‘These shortages are set to remain a challenge throughout 2022. In addition, the war in Ukraine at the beginning of 2022 has brought further disruption to the country automotive supply industry.’
