BMW’s record global sales through the end of October are keeping the company on track to repeat as the world’s largest seller of luxury vehicles. Mercedes-Benz and Audi are jockeying for second place, with Mercedes holding the advantage going into the final quarter.
For the first ten months of 2015, BMW Group posted a 7.1 percent improvement over total sales through October 2014. By the end of October, it had delivered 1,836,464 vehicles.
BMW-branded sales topped out at 1,560,697 through October 2015, mainly due to continuing good sales of 2 Series Active Tourers, the 4 Series, and especially, BMW’s family of X vehicles.
“Our sales continue to grow steadily in all regions of the world, despite ongoing volatility in some markets,” said Ian Robertson, Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, Sales and Marketing BMW. He added, “Sales of our trend-setting BMW X models are showing particularly good growth in a competitive environment and the new BMW X1 is in extremely high demand. Customers around the world are responding very positively to the new BMW 7 Series, which has also just arrived in the showrooms, so we are expecting to see additional momentum going towards the end of the year.”
A total of 15,615 2 Series were sold worldwide in October. The 4 Series also did well with 11,575 units delivered worldwide during the month. The bedrock upon which BMW sales are being built seems to be the X vehicles, four of which are produced in South Carolina for export to the world.
The BMW i sub-brand is also helping the cause. In October, 2,553 i cars were delivered, bringing the total through October to 23,133—a 78.6 percent boost from this time last year.
Mini has turned around in 2015. Its 272,819 vehicles in worldwide sales represents a 15.4 percent increase over a year ago. The Mini 5 Door sold about four times as many cars through October as a year ago. Mini helps the BMW Group's bottom line, but Mini sales are not counted for the luxury sales crown.
Looking in the rear-view mirror, BMW can see that Mercedes-Benz has passed Audi for the #2 global luxury sales spot. Both Mercedes-Benz and Audi have vowed to overtake BMW for the worldwide luxury car sales lead by 2020. Good luck, fellas.—Scott Blazey
[Photos courtesy of BMW AG.]
