BMW Is on a Roll With Best-Ever Half-Year Global Sales
Even with its traditionally strong markets stagnating, BMW still manages to post its best ever half-year sales with more than a million cars sold so far in 2017.
In just six months, BMW has sold 1,220,819 cars—an average of almost five cars a minute, 24 hours a day, for six months, according to a press release the automaker posted Wednesday. That's a record for the company and one that cements it as "the world’s leading premium car company," according to Dr. Ian Robertson, Member of the BMW AG Board of Management. To what can we attribute this most recent success?
Firstly, the not so good stuff—Europe is pretty stagnant for BMW, not seeing any particular growth from last year, especially in its home market of Germany. There, the automaker actually performed slightly worse than in the same period 12 months ago. In America, sales for BMW have similarly shrunk slightly in the last 12 months.
BMW has had more luck in other parts of the world, though. Asian and Latin American sales are up more than 15 percent compared to the same period in 2016, and combined, they account for more than a third of total global sales.
BMW is keen on promoting the massive growth in its electric vehicle sales—a direction it will continue to push worldwide from now on. The Mini Cooper S E Countryman ALL4 is its latest electric offering, and a bit of a mouthful too.
Perhaps the only noteworthy sales shortfall is Rolls Royce, with total sales down by a small but significant 6 percent from last year. The cause for this is likely the lack of a Phantom in the current range, and with 2016 being so strong with the recent introduction of the Dawn.
This seems fair enough, and as Rolls Royce accounts for such a small fraction of total sales, it can easily afford this small dip given the circumstances.
