Key R&D figures

In fiscal year 2016, we filed 6,465 (6,244) patent applications worldwide for employee inventions, around half of them in Germany. An increasing share of these applications is for driver assistance systems, conventional and alternative drive systems, and lightweight construction, thus underscoring our outstanding power to innovate.

In the reporting period, the Automotive Division's total research and development costs were 0.4% higher than in the previous year; total research and development expenditure as a percentage of the Automotive Division’s sales revenue (the R&D ratio) came to 7.3 (7.4)%. Along with new models, the main focus was on the electrification of our vehicle portfolio, a more efficient range of engines, lightweight construction, digitalization and the development of modular toolkits. The capitalization ratio rose to 42.1 (36.9)%. Research and development expenditure recognized in profit or loss in accordance with IFRS decreased to €11.5 (11.9) billion.

As of December 31, 2016, the research and development function – including the equity-accounted Chinese joint ventures – employed 48,063 people (−1.4%) Group-wide or 7.7% of the total headcount.