Spain scored during the past year. Consequently, together with the pull caused by national consumption, companies linked to the sector fired their margins on sales to unpublished levels, as reflected in the provisional data that the Tax Agency has updated this week. This is shown by a detailed analysis throughout the 74 levels of activity that broken the statistics, among which the hospitality with rates never seen to date. On the opposite side, of the country’s great economic activities, the motor industry is located. Their yields on sales are at low hours and scored in 2024 a clinical picture that begins to approach red numbers for the first time since 2009, when the historical series begins.
The business margin is the indicator that measures the relationship between the gross exploitation result and the total sales of a company. It reflects the profits obtained by companies after deducting production and salary costs, but before considering taxes, interests and amortizations. An increase in ratio, therefore, does not necessarily imply, but anticipates a billing growth that may be motivated by internal factors, such as better resource management, or external, such as rising interest rates or Transfer of the increase in production costs to the final prices.
In 2024, the total sales of the companies that are part of the sample – which do not include the financial sector – increased 1.3% over the previous year and far exceeds, by 30%, prepaandia levels. According to Carlos Gutiérrez, Confederal Secretary of Studies and Trade Union Training of CC OO, this result is due to an increase in volumes and in prices, which in some products have been enchanted despite the moderation of inflation after the peaks marked in 2022 and 2023. “For example, a coffee that now costs 1.8 euros will not return to 1.2 euros before the raw material has been cheaper.” In the final stretch of the year, however, the growth rate of the margins has experienced some moderation.
In the tourist section, which already contributes to the GDP again with the usual proportions, the airlines carried their sales on sales to 75.4%, an unusual ratio in the series, while travel agencies and reserves operators reached 38.5%, in this case its second best figure after 2023. More striking are the numbers of the hospitality and restoration, a sector that moved last year 78,000 million euros in sales and raised its margins to an unpublished 19.8%. Both the industry and wholesale trade registered high yields, of 11.2% in the first case – it is exceeded only in 2016 and 2017 – and 12.6% in the second, the maximum of the series. The same trend has followed the sector that encompasses agriculture, livestock, forestry and fishing, which recorded record margins, of 12.3%.
In general terms, the Observatory reflects an average margin growth of companies to unpublished levels: 13.1% in 2024, the highest percentage of the series. The average yields collapsed to 10% in 2020 as a result of the pandemic and were gradually recovering, but they had never reached a level as high as last year. Historically, they moved between 10.5% and 11%. The radiography is also in unusual dimensions if the energy sector is eliminated from the equation, which reflects that, discounted the possible alterations of the inflationary crisis, companies continue to gain ground.
The margins of the energy sector, in fact, loosen something after the experience experienced following the conflict in Ukraine. Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning companies recorded 21.1%, last year, somewhat less with respect to the 2022 peak (24.6%), but well above the usual levels of the last decade, which used to be around 10%. The wholesale trade of itself reached a record, of 30.5%, as well as real estate activities, which in the face of market heating registered record yields of 33.3%.
At an aggregate level, explains Raymond Torres, director of the economic situation of Funcas, “there is no problem in failure, so large companies are in a satisfactory situation.” The observatory data, which are provisional, are extracted from VAT statements and retaining IRPF, so they can be partial when drinking mainly from large groups – the most invoiced are 80% of total sales— , which are those that advance the consumption tax. Therefore, Torres continues, these companies should not have problems to, something that many have already been doing to compensate for inflation, or to assume the possible reduction of working hours in which the government works. “Everything suggests that there is a certain stabilization at record levels. That gives margin for salary improvements and, Gutiérrez coincides.
Different issue is that of small and medium enterprises, Torres continues. His reasoning indicates that the drawing presented by the national accounting regarding the margins is not as bulky as that of the Observatory, so the trend will not be equally “buoyant” in the case of SMEs. That is why it suggests that in the negotiations on salary updates and reduction of the day, both the size of the company and the sector in which it operates is taken into account. An example is the automotive.
The automobile industry is going against the rest. The margins of vehicle -manufacturing companies were 1.1% in 2024, the lowest level of the series, about four points lower than the registered trademark before the pandemic. There are several clouds that explain these rickety results, such as the regulatory uncertainty surrounding the future of the combustion car – accompanied by the lack of takeoff of electric cars – and the fierce competition of foreign producers, such as China. In fact, discomfort extends beyond national borders and affects all of Europe. The great brands of the old continent such as Volkswagen and Stellantis and Germany, the industrial heart of the old continent, is the country that suffers the most.
