This was in spite of a decreasing market in June, with global sales slipping by 2.8% to 146,138. Ian Robertson, sales and marketing head on the BMW board, said: “In the first half of the year we were able to report solid growth, as planned.
“Despite difficult economic conditions in certain automobile markets, the BMW Group aims to improve on last year’s sales level for the year as a whole. However, we will continue to monitor world markets and their performance so as to react as necessary.”
Deliveries of the BMW brand were up 2.4% between January and June to 637,569 vehicles. The main drivers of this growth were the 1-Series with 116,919 vehicles sold, a 66.4% increase, the X5 with sales of 63,352, a 30.5% increase and the new X6 with 6,082 units already delivered.
Mini sales were up 17.9% in the first half of the year to reach a total of 126,810 vehicles. A strong contribution to the growth in sales was made by the arrival of the Clubman. In the first six months of this year 24,774 Clubman were sold. That means that every fifth Mini sold is now a Clubman.
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars sold 495 automobiles in the first six months of the year and increase of 64.8%. In June 114 vehicles were handed over to customers, an increase of 56.2%.
#AM_ART_SPLIT# While the BMW Group was able to achieve strong growth overall in Europe, Asia and South America, it could not match its sales figures for the previous year in the USA and Africa.
In Europe the number of deliveries totalled 470,225 vehicles, surpassing the previous year’s figure (435,971) by 7.9%. The company easily sold its most vehicles in Western Europe with 446,032 units sold, 6.6% up.
Eastern Europe saw a strong pace of growth with group sales up 32.9% in the first half-year, bringing the total to 21,479.
In Asia sales climbed 8.7% to 83,386 units. Within this region the Chinese markets continue to experience big growth, with 35,468 vehicles sold by the end of June – which is 25.1% more than in the previous year.
BMW saw group sales shrink 4% to 157,913 units in the USA in the first half of the year. Nonetheless, the company did better than the market, which in the USA contracted by 10.1% in the period from January to June.
Sales in central and South America, increased over the same period: by 8.4% to 7,486 vehicles and by 24.4% to 4,350 vehicles respectively. Overall the American markets were down 2.6% to 183,935 units.
In the African markets, including its largest single market, South Africa, sales in the first half-year also fell by a total of 11.6% to 14,708 vehicles.
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