BASF sees its net profit plummet in the second quarter of the year. The German chemical company BASF has not obtained optimal results in the last three months. Its profit has fallen by 76% compared to the same period last year, when it posted a profit of 2.09 billion euros. As a result, the German group has been forced to revise and lower its expectations for the remainder of 2023, as reported by the Europa Press news agency.
The German group has checked its roadmap for 2023 after adverse economic results. The company told the agency that, although global GDP experienced unexpected growth in the first quarter of the year, this development was stimulated by the services sector and that the expansion of industrial production was mired in a relentless slowdown.
The BASF Group has seen sales between April and June decline by up to 25% compared to the same period last year. The causes attributed to this decrease are lower prices and sales volumes than in the previous year and the unfavourable impact of the exchange rate. The company, as Europa Press points out, expects demand to recover in the coming months, and they affirm and foresee a weaker sales and earnings development than forecast at the beginning of the year.
EBIT, although at EUR 1,007 million, was down 57% compared to the second quarter of the previous year and highlights the "particularly weaker" contributions of the Chemicals and Materials segments.
BASF, which had expected sales in 2023 to be around 84 to 87 billion euros, now estimates that these will be between 73 and 76 billion euros. It also lowers its EBIT expectations, which the group previously predicted would be around 4.8 to 5.4 billion euros, now, in view of the latest results, it lowers the figure to between 4 and 4.4 billion euros.
The BASF Group, when it published its figures for the 2022 financial year, already explained that its EBIT at that time was below the previous year's figure and that it also failed to reach the 6.836 billion euros that analysts had predicted for the company. In the end, the German group posted 6.548 billion euros. However, volume and sales figures did grow in line with estimates, but driven by higher prices and positive currency effects.