Key R&D figures
In fiscal year 2021, we filed 5,638 (6,795) patent applications worldwide for employee inventions, the majority of them in Germany. The fact that an ever-increasing share of these patents is for important cutting-edge fields underscores our Company’s innovative power. These fields include driver assistance systems, automation and connectivity, as well as alternative drive systems.
The Automotive Division’s total research and development costs in the reporting period amounted to €15.6 (13.9) billion and were 12.2 % higher than in the previous year; their percentage of the Automotive Division’s sales revenue – the R&D ratio – remained unchanged at 7.6 (7.6) %. In addition to new models, our activities focused above all on the electrification of our vehicle portfolio, digitalization, new technologies and our modular toolkits and platforms. The capitalization ratio was 50.3 (46.6) %. Research and development expenditure recognized in profit or loss in accordance with the IFRSs increased to €12.8 (12.1) billion.
As of December 31, 2021, our Research and Development departments – including the equity-accounted Chinese joint ventures – employed 53,046 people (+0.6 %) Group-wide, corresponding to 7.9 % of the total workforce.
€ million |
|
2021 |
|
2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
Total research and development costs |
|
15,583 |
|
13,885 |
of which capitalized development costs |
|
7,843 |
|
6,473 |
Capitalization ratio in % |
|
50.3 |
|
46.6 |
Amortization of capitalized development costs |
|
5,050 |
|
4,644 |
Research and development costs recognized in profit or loss |
|
12,790 |
|
12,056 |
|
|
|
|
|
Sales revenue |
|
206,237 |
|
182,106 |
Total research and development costs |
|
15,583 |
|
13,885 |
R&D ratio |
|
7.6 |
|
7.6 |