BERLIN (Reuters) – Continental’s net income in 2022 fell 95.4% year-on-year to 67 million euros ($70.60 million), the autos supplier said on Wednesday, dragged down by negative special effects, higher interest rates and impairing assets related to Russia.
The company, which reported in preliminary results in January that its 2022 margin was 5%, forecast a 5.5-6.5% margin for this year on higher consolidated sales of 42-45 billion euros, up from 39.4 billion last year.
It incurred 3.3 billion euros in extra costs in 2022 for raw materials, semi-finished products, energy and logistics because of the impact of the war in Ukraine, coronavirus restrictions in China and the chip shortage, it said.
For 2023, it expected an extra 1.7 billion in risen costs for materials, energy, logistics, wages and salaries.
Global car production would rise around 2-4% in 2023, the company predicted, in line with a recent forecast by Germany’s autos association which saw 4% growth this year – still bringing the total number of cars produced to below pre-pandemic levels.
($1 = 0.9490 euros)
(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee; Editing by Paul Carrel)
