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Mercedes-Benz has cut its annual guidance and warned that vehicle sales would be “significantly lower” than last year after the Trump administration’s tariffs halved its second-quarter profits.
The Stuttgart-based company said on Wednesday that it expected adjusted return on sales margin at its car division to range between 4 and 6 per cent in 2025 when including the impact from higher US car tariffs. That compared with a previously forecast range of 6 to 8 per cent.
The guidance cut follows a similar move by German rival Volkswagen as companies have begun to detail the financial impact of the additional 25 per cent tariff that the US president imposed on cars imported into the US from the EU.
Following the trade deal between the EU and the US, the tariff rate is expected to fall from 27.5 per cent, a figure that includes a previous 2.5 per cent duty, to 15 per cent.
For the April-to-June quarter, Mercedes-Benz reported that its adjusted earnings before interest and taxes fell 51 per cent from a year earlier to €2bn, in line with analyst expectations.
Net income fell 69 per cent to €957mn while revenue fell 9.8 per cent to €33bn as the group adjusted vehicle supplies to address the tariff impact.
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