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BMW Won't Increase Customer Discounts in the US

BMW will not raise incentives for its luxury car customers this year, as the company will instead be targeting higher profits from its existing market share.

The Bavarians are not going to race to become this year's top selling US luxury automobile brand. Lexus, helped by customer discounts, earned this title in October, helping it widen the gap over BMW. The Japanese brand will be under pressure next year, as parent company Toyota’s recalls and new products from BMW and Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz division will cut into its market share.

To achieve the sales it wanted, Lexus increased incentives to a level three times greater than that of a year ago. The average incentives rose to $3,746 in October from $1,121 a year earlier, while incentive spending on Lexus trucks rose to $2,810 from $696, according to Autodata Corp., a Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey-based researcher.

At the same time BMW lowered its incentives by 39 percent in October, to an average of $2,926, while Mercedes’ was largely unchanged at $3,879. For the whole year, BMW dealers lowered incentives by 27 percent, while Mercedes managed a 30 percent reduction.

U.S. sales for this year until October totaled 183,529 for Lexus, 178,080 for Mercedes and 176,736 for BMW. This figure is fair, as it does not include non luxury-vehicles like Minis and Smarts.

The Bavarian company’s US sales are expected to increase 16 percent next year, on strong demand for new products such as the X3 crossover, the 5-Series and the new 6-Series. The company is also expected to create a larger SUV then the X5, especially for America.
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About the author: Mihnea Radu
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Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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