The luxury automaker, which posted a record 2.8 billion euro profit last year during the second quarter, says it earned 2.27 billion Euros (nearly $2.8 billion) before interest and taxes according to German accounting practices.
BMW blamed the decline in profitability on increased personnel costs, higher developmental spending and more competition from rivals in Asia, Europe and North America. Despite having some plants spread across the globe in the United States, China and South Africa, BMW builds most of its vehicles in Europe.
Still, BMW says that 2012 will likely be a banner year for vehicle sales as it says it's still on track to best last year's record-breaking 1.67 BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce deliveries. So far this year, BMW's global sales were up 8.1 percent to 900,539 vehicles. Europe remains the carmaker's largest single market, where sales were essentially flat at 437,066 vehicles through the first six months. In Asia, sales were up nearly 26 percent to 237,875 cars, while the Americas represented a 9 percent bump to 194,620 cars.
BMW's North American offices will announce July sales later today.
