BMW Group sales in August 2016 rose 5.7% year on year to 165,431 vehicles – a record for the month – with year-to-date volume up 5.5% to 1,508,659, the first time the automaker has sold over 1.5m vehicles in the first eight months of a year.
BMW brand sales rose 5% to 142,554 last month with YTD volume also up 5.5% to 1,282,511.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Sales of electrified models remained strong, especially in Europe. Combined global sales of BMW i and BMW iPerformance vehicles were already higher than the 2015 total with 34,664 delivered so far this year. Of this, 17,809 were iPerformance and 16,855 i vehicles. The i3, which in July launched an additional model with significantly increased electric range, was delivered to 2,848 customers worldwide in August, an increase of 73.2%.
Mini brand sales increased 10.3% in August to 22,575 worldwide. In the first eight months of the year, sales rose by 5.7% (223,913). The premium brand's biggest growth drivers are the Clubman, with 36,687 sold worldwide so far this year, and the new Convertible – which achieved sales growth of 148.0% in August (2,153).
Combined monthly sales of BMW and Mini in Europe totalled 62,653 in August, up 6.3% compared with the same month last year. Year to date sales in the region were up 10.1% with a total of 685,328 vehicles delivered. All markets in the region have contributed to this year's strong growth with many achieving double digit growth including Italy (51,444/+16.7%), Spain (35,634/+20.1%) and Scandinavia (34,370/+15.5%).
Sales in Asia also saw strong growth last month with 59,047 vehicles delivered (+13.8%). In the first eight months of the year, a total of 476,777 were sold, an increase of 8.1%. The region's biggest market, mainland China, saw a 9.4% increase YTD with 329,972 vehicles sold so far this year.
Sales in the Americas decreased 4.4% in August to 38,200 and YTD volume was down 7% to 298,821. August sales were up in Canada (3,575/+8.0%) and Mexico (2,976/+25.5%) but the "increasingly competitive" market in the US saw deliveries fall 7.2% to 30,500.
"The BMW Group's ongoing sales success across all our premium brands underlines the strength of our product line-up," said BMW sales and marketing head Ian Robertson. "Sales are increasing across the range and our electrified models are proving extremely popular – we've already sold more alternative drive vehicles this year than in the whole of 2015."
