BMW Stagnates In July

2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 05:39

BMW grew only very slowly in July. The small car brand did all the more to keep the group in the black. BMW is still well in the race for the year as a whole.

The car manufacturer BMW sold just a little more cars in July than a year ago. Sales rose last month by 0.4 percent to 180,726 cars, as the Dax company announced on Thursday in Munich. The plus came mainly from the small car brand Mini.

The parent brand BMW, which last year lost the crown among the premium brands to the Stuttgart rival Daimler with its own brand Mercedes-Benz, sold 153,511 cars only 0.1 percent more.

Model change from 5 Series and X3

The main focus of BMW is currently on profitability, said BMW sales director Ian Robertson. The market conditions in the USA remained difficult, and the model change for the new 5 Series and the X3 family off-road vehicle was a burden.

BMW had emphasized several times that it did not want to forego returns in the race among the premium brands for quantities. In the year as a whole, BMW has sold 4.3 percent more cars.

Minus in the US - plus in China

BMW sold fewer vehicles in Europe and the USA. BMW was able to further increase its global sales overall in July, but sold fewer cars in Europe and the USA. Sales in the United States fell sharply by 13.6 percent to a good 26,300 vehicles compared to the same month last year. The group blamed the weaker auto economy there on Thursday for this development. The minus was higher at BMW than the decline in the overall US market of seven percent, which several media had reported in the past few days. In Europe, the Munich-based company sold 78,600 vehicles, 1.5 percent less than in July 2016. The main reason for this was a sales decline of almost nine percent in Great Britain.

However, these difficulties were more than offset by the continued booming business in China and some other markets such as Mexico. In China, BMW sold 43,300 vehicles in July, eight percent more than in the same month last year.

Electric car sales are currently growing the fastest, albeit on a still low basis. Since the beginning of the year, BMW has sold 50,700 e-cars, almost 75 percent more than in the same period last year. Overall, the Munich-based company wants to sell more than 100,000 electrified vehicles for the first time in a year. (AG / TF)