“We are heading in the right direction - since April we have continually regained ground month-on-month. In August the trend continued. I am cautiously optimistic that we will be back on our growth path in the months ahead and will remain the leading international supplier of premium automobiles this year, even though we will not sell as many cars in total in 2009 as in 2008,” Ian Robertson, BMW member of the board said in a release.
BMW, as a group, sold a total of 91,790 vehicles in August, compared to 101,679 in the same month of 2008. MINI sold 6,064 vehicles (down only 1.2 percent), Rolls-Royce 37 vehicles (down 63.4 percent), while BMW accounted for the remaining 75,689 vehicles (down 11.3 percent).
The best performing vehicle was the 7 Series, which managed to record a 21 percent increase and the MINI convertible, who was purchased by 55.5 percent more people. At the opposite end is the entire Rolls-Royce range, which is still feeling the impact of the economic crisis.
As for the best performing markets, no surprise here, China still leads the race. In all, the Chinese bought 63.2 percent more vehicles than in the same month of 2008 (9,013 vehicles). In the home market (also the biggest retail market for BMW), the company achieved a 3.5 percent increase, to 18,570 vehicles.
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