Photo: Image edited by autoevolution
There has been a bit of an unofficial U.S. sales race between BMW and Mercedes-Benz in the last five years. Despite being neck and neck most of the time and Mercedes-Benz taking the sales crown back in 2013, it seems that the Bavarians still had the upper hand at the end of last year.
Now that all major players have released their U.S. sales figures, we decided to have a closer look at the top three brands in the luxury segment. As it happens, Mercedes-Benz not only lost to BMW, but thanks to an awesome December, Lexus passed it as well.
The entire race was as tight as they come, with less than 3,000 vehicles separating the carmakers mentioned above.
Despite an abysmal month of December, when its sales fell 17 percent compared to the same month in 2014, BMW managed to come on top for the entire 2015, with 346,023 cars sold. “The new sales record in 2015 is the third record year in a row for BMW with the numbers further emphasizing the growth of luxury trucks, which are now one-third of BMW sales in the U.S.,” said Ludwig Willisch, President and CEO of BMW of North America.
After leading the U.S. luxury car race for every single year since 2000, Lexus fell to a distant fourth and fifth starting with 2011, most of its models' availability having been affected by the TMhoku earthquake and tsunami.
That was then and this is now, because Lexus bounced back hard in 2015, even surpassing Mercedes-Benz by the end of the year. As a matter of fact, the Japanese luxury carmaker sold 41,380 cars during December, which was the all-time best month for the brand. No less than 344,601 cars were sold during 2015, just enough for Lexus to slide under BMW.
Mercedes-Benz, while also posting record-breaking sales for both December and the whole of 2015, only managed to sell 343,088 vehicles (excluding smart and Vans). It will be interesting to see how the U.S. luxury sales fight will continue in 2016 between these three because no other carmaker came even close to the numbers mentioned above.
The entire race was as tight as they come, with less than 3,000 vehicles separating the carmakers mentioned above.
Despite an abysmal month of December, when its sales fell 17 percent compared to the same month in 2014, BMW managed to come on top for the entire 2015, with 346,023 cars sold. “The new sales record in 2015 is the third record year in a row for BMW with the numbers further emphasizing the growth of luxury trucks, which are now one-third of BMW sales in the U.S.,” said Ludwig Willisch, President and CEO of BMW of North America.
After leading the U.S. luxury car race for every single year since 2000, Lexus fell to a distant fourth and fifth starting with 2011, most of its models' availability having been affected by the TMhoku earthquake and tsunami.
That was then and this is now, because Lexus bounced back hard in 2015, even surpassing Mercedes-Benz by the end of the year. As a matter of fact, the Japanese luxury carmaker sold 41,380 cars during December, which was the all-time best month for the brand. No less than 344,601 cars were sold during 2015, just enough for Lexus to slide under BMW.
Mercedes-Benz, while also posting record-breaking sales for both December and the whole of 2015, only managed to sell 343,088 vehicles (excluding smart and Vans). It will be interesting to see how the U.S. luxury sales fight will continue in 2016 between these three because no other carmaker came even close to the numbers mentioned above.
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