BMW, the German luxury car maker, said on Tuesday that it could no longer give a forecast for 2008 and was downbeat for next year too after getting hit head-on by the international financial crisis.

"Difficult business conditions and the volatile climate on the market mean that it is as good as impossible from today's perspective to make a reliable prediction of the earnings outcome for the financial year 2008," chairman Norbert Reithofer said.

"We are far from overcoming the financial crisis, in particular with respect to its consequences on the real economy in 2009," he added.

The Munich-based group said it would have to take additional charges of 1.3 billion euros (1.64 billion dollars) in the third quarter of 2008, and that it would cut production by an additional 40,000 units this year.

It had already announced that output would be reduced by 25,000 units.

Third-quarter sales fell by 8.6 percent to 12.6 billion euros, while net profit plunged by 63 percent to 298 million euros.

BMW said many factors had hit its results, including consumer reticence in its main markets, weak used car markets that affected leasing operations, increased financing costs and higher prices for raw materials early in the quarter.

Owing to the poor market climate and "uncertainties caused by the financial crisis, the profitability targets set for 2008 are no longer achievable," the statement said.

"The likely progress of business over the coming months cannot be forecast with any exactitude," BMW said.

Reithofer stressed that "we will, however, achieve a result that is clearly positive" this year.

The group sold 349,098 of its BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce cars between July and September, a fall of 4.2 percent.

It also sold 24,818 motorcycles, an increase of 5.4 percent, though "market conditions for the motorcycle business were also difficult."

In the nine months since January, BMW said it had sold 1,113,972 automobiles, a slight increase of 1.7 percent.

In the United States, BMW's largest market, "private consumption and consumer confidence have dipped perceptibly," the statement said.

On Monday, rival Porsche said its North American sales had plunged by 39 percent in October from the same month a year earlier.

BMW's financial services unit, which handles important leasing operations in the United States, posted an operating loss of 26 million euros, compared with a profit of 176 million a year earlier.

BMW's nine-month net profit fell by 39.7 percent to 1.292 billion euros.

The group said that positive effects of the economic slowdown, including easing pressure on raw material prices and a stronger dollar "are nowhere near sufficient to off-set the extremely high level of expenses" it had to bear.

"It cannot be ruled out that the risk provision for bad debts and lease financing will have to be increased again before the end of 2008," it warned.

BMW said it was in talks with its works committee to link workers' bonuses more closely to the group's results.

That would mean cutting such bonuses to be paid this year.

BMW has also launched a deep restructuring of its personnel and aims to eliminate 8,100 posts by the end of the year.

In morning trades on the Frankfurt stock exchange, BMW shares had initially posted sharp losses, but later rebounded to show a gain of 1.80 percent at 20.95 euros, while the DAX index was up by 0.58 percent overall.

- Dow Jones Newswires contributed to this story -