BMW has proven that no European brand is immune to financial underachievement by announcing weaker-than-expected quarterly results for the July to September period.The German manufacturer’s profits were up year-on-year – by 6.3 per cent, at £533m – but this was a smaller jump than financial experts had predicted. BMW says the figure can be attributed to higher costs of raw materials and a string of expensive product launches.Probably the biggest factor, though, is the weak American dollar; with the Euro hitting an all-time high of $1.4531 today, BMWs have never been so expensive in one of its most important markets.All is not lost, however; BMW stated that it is “well on the way” to meeting its sales targets for 2007. Sales of Mini are up over 25 per cent year-on-year, and the Drophead Coupé helped Rolls-Royce to deliver 285 cars in the third quarter, a rise of 51.9 per cent over the same period in 2006.
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