BMW misses profit expectations, shares fall sharply

The world's largest premium automaker, BMW, reported that its third-quarter pretax profit fell short of expectations, leading to shares falling sharply.

Before tax earnings rose 6.3 percent to 765 million euros ($1.11 billion), missing the average estimate of 913 million euros from a Reuters poll of analysts. Shares of BMW fell more than 4 percent, performing worst than other European automakers.

"The main reason for the weaker than expected result appears to be found in the 'Other & Consolidation' line. This is usually heavily impacted by one-offs and is very difficult to estimate," Tim Schuldt told Reuters.

Investors have been criticizing BMW CEO Reithofer's vision as unambitious, despite his recent plans to increase automobile retail to 1.8 million units by 2012. Speaking to the press, Reithofer recently said, "As far as retail volume is concerned, we intend not only to remain the world's leading premium provider in the automotive industry. By 2020, we want to lead all of the segments in which we are active," said Reithofer.

Reithofer said that BMW's main goal is to increase automobile retail to more than two million units by 2020.