(11) Marketing and selling expenses
Accounting and measurement policies
Marketing and selling expenses
Marketing and selling expenses within logistics costs also include expenses for transportation services performed on behalf of customers. The corresponding income from these services is reported under net sales.
Amortization of the intangible assets under marketing and selling expenses is mainly attributable to customer relationships, marketing authorizations, licenses and similar rights, brands, and trademarks, which can be functionally allocated to Marketing and selling.
Marketing and selling expenses comprised the following items:
€ million |
|
2021 |
|
2020 |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sales force |
|
-891 |
|
-910 |
||||
Internal sales services |
|
-886 |
|
-862 |
||||
Sales promotion |
|
-461 |
|
-413 |
||||
Logistics |
|
-985 |
|
-899 |
||||
Amortization of intangible assets1 |
|
-589 |
|
-636 |
||||
Royalty and license expenses |
|
-166 |
|
-164 |
||||
Other marketing and selling expenses |
|
-325 |
|
-324 |
||||
Marketing and selling expenses |
|
-4,304 |
|
-4,207 |
||||
|
||||||||
The increase in expenses for sales promotion is due to increased advertising activity following the relaxation of measures to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition to the higher sales volume, the increase in logistics expenses was due to price rises resulting from capacity bottlenecks in international goods transportation.
The decrease in amortization of intangible assets was related to the regional expiration of distribution rights for Xalkori® in the business sector Healthcare. The downturn in the Life Science business sector was due to assets reaching the end of their scheduled useful lives.
Of the royalty and license expenses, € 48 million (2020: € 41 million) related to the commercialization of Erbitux®, while € 44 million (2020: € 51 million) related to license expenses in connection with the commercialization of Glucophage® in China.