Luxury Is Booming: BMW, Daimler And Audi On Record Course

2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-08-25 09:36

No trace of the crisis. Luxury is booming. The German premium manufacturers BMW, Audi and Daimler are on record course after the first four months of this year.

After the first four months of 2012, BMW, Audi and Daimler are still on record course. Also in April, the rivals for the crown in the upper class segment and sold more cars. Although model changes in China slowed down Daimler a little, all in all the three German luxury brands are still on the move at breakneck speed. Audi sold around 125,200 cars worldwide in April, an increase of 14.4 percent. This means that sales in the first four months already total 471,300 cars, 11.7 percent more than a year ago, as the group announced in Ingolstadt on Wednesday.

Car market in southern Europe is weak

There is shade especially in southern Europe. In Italy, for example, sales fell by 10 percent, in Spain by a good 7 percent - the debt crisis is leaving its mark here, but the markets with a few thousand vehicles are not particularly large anyway. So things went all the better for the Volkswagen subsidiary in China, which is now the most important market for Upper Bavaria. In April, Audi grew by 44 percent to 34,221 cars in the Middle Kingdom.

In the USA, too, things went up. "With 11,521 automobiles sold and an increase of 15 percent in April, we achieved the 16th record month in a row," said Head of Sales Peter Schwarzenbauer. BMW set another sales record in April. Worldwide, the industry leader sold 145 505 BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce cars, a good 6 percent more than a year ago, as the company announced on Tuesday - and thus more than ever in April. In the first four months, the sales figures totaled 571,040 vehicles - also a new record. That is almost ten percent more than in the same period in 2011. In Asia and North America in particular, Upper Bavaria continued to improve.

In the Middle Kingdom alone, sales rose by almost 31 percent in April. BMW sold almost 27,200 vehicles there. The minus in Europe was limited at 2 percent. Daimler had already reported a significant decline in China last Friday and named the model change as the reason. The weak month there also slowed down overall growth. The Stuttgart-based company sold 113,901 Mercedes-Benz, Smart, Maybach and AMG cars, 3.5 percent more. The growth was more pronounced in the first quarter. (dpa)