The BMW Group surpassed its own records for both quarterly and half-year car sales volumes, in the last accounting period of outgoing chairman Helmut Panke.

A total of 365,547 BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce brand cars were delivered to customers in the second quarter 2006, 3.2% more than in the same quarter last year, bringing volume for the first half of 2006 to 698,470 units, up 8.0% year on year.

Weak motorcycle sales in the early part of 2006 due to adverse weather conditions were almost completely offset in the second quarter. 37,052 BMW motorcycles were sold during the second quarter 2006, thus beating the previous year's figure by 3.0%. For the first half, unit sales now lag 2.1% behind the previous year.

The number of lease and financing contracts in place at BMW’s financial services unit at the end of the second quarter stood at 2,179,933 units, 11.1% more than one year earlier.

Group revenues for the second quarter 2006, at €13.2 billion (£8.95 billion), were 8.5% ahead of the same quarter last year. For the six-month period, group revenues totalled €24.8 billion (£16.8 billion), a year-on-year increase of 10.2%.

Pre-tax profit of €1.2 billion (£813.5 million) for the second quarter was up 32.9% o the previous year. Group profit before tax for the six-month period was €2.5 billion (£1.7 billion), 44.5% ahead of the previous year and as a result, the highest half-year profit ever achieved in the history of the company.

In the previous year, earnings had been adversely affected by fair value losses on the exchangeable bond option relating to the BMW Group’s investment in Rolls-Royce plc. In 2006, by contrast, partial settlement of the exchangeable bond gives rise to an accounting gain which has a positive impact on earnings over the course of the year.

The BMW Group forecasts that business will continue to develop positively in the second half of 2006, and that full-year record volumes will be achieved even though sales growth in the second half will be more moderate than in the first.