German carmaker BMW said yesterday it was on track to hit performance targets for 2019 despite “difficult conditions”, after the third quarter brought rising sales and profits.

BMW’s bottom line swelled 11.5 per cent to over 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion), lifted by the comparison to 2018’s weak third quarter that was weighed down by new emissions tests.

“We are performing at a high level in comparison with our competitors and considering the difficult conditions our business is facing,” chief financial officer Nicolas Peter said in a statement.

Chief executive Oliver Zipse said BMW was “well on our way to reaching our targets for the year as a whole.”

But bosses’ objectives call for pre-tax profit to fall “significantly below” 2018’s level over the full year.Between January and September, the measure fell 35 per cent year-on-year.

BMW’s profits met forecasts from analysts surveyed by Factset, but it was able to beat expectations on revenue — up 7.9 per cent, at 26.7 billion euros — and operating, or underlying profit, which gained 32.9 per cent to reach 2.3 billion.