Record July for BMW but American market remains sluggish
BMW saw a 4% increase in vehicle sales in July, making it another record month for the manufacturer.
The group, which has an engine production facility in Hams Hall, sold 180,080 vehicles globally last month.
Coming off the back of a record first half-year, this solid start to the third quarter sees year-to-date sales climb 5.5% with 1,343,217 vehicles delivered worldwide.
Ian Robertson, board member for sales and marketing, said: “The BMW Group continues to deliver sustainable, profitable sales growth month after month.
“While we see growth across our range, the fact that the planned production for our electrified 7 Series, 3 Series and 2 Series Active Tourer models is already sold out this year demonstrates our strategy of rolling out electrification on all models is the right one. We will, of course, now respond to this high customer demand.”
Sales of BMW’s own branded vehicles last month matched that of the group as a whole, with 153,392 delivered to customers – a new July record.
This brings year-to-date sales for the brand to 1,139,947, an increase of 5.6% compared with the first seven months of last year.
Many BMW models achieved considerable sales growth in the year-to-date including the BMW 2 Series (113,233 / +43.6%), the BMW X1 (111,639 / +69.6%), the BMW X3 (88,442 / +15.5%) and BMW X4 (34,464 / +6.9%).
Well over 30,000 new BMW 7 Series models have been delivered so far this year, with sales up 40% compared with the same period last year. As availability of all variants continues to increase, monthly sales of the brand’s flagship vehicle more than doubled year-on-year with 5,025 delivered to customers in July.
Following on from its best-ever first half year, MINI achieved record sales in July with 26,439, again a rise of 4%.
A total of 201,337 MINIs were sold in the first seven months of the year, an increase of 5.2% and the first time the brand has sold over 200,000 vehicles by this point in the year.
The brand’s biggest growth drivers in the year-to-date are the MINI Convertible (17,225 / +65.9%) and the MINI Clubman, which has been delivered to more than 32,000people around the world.
In Europe, combined monthly sales of BMW and MINI totalled 79,815 in July, up 5.6% compared with the same month last year. In the UK the figure was 136,914, an increase of 9.6%.
Sales of both brands were strong in Asia but in the Americas they decreased by 3.9%. Year-to-date sales in the Americas region were 260,621, which is down 7.4% compared with the same period last year.
