BMW bucks early trend

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said that during January 2011 new car registrations were down by 11.5% compared to last January. This was expected as the market is no longer fuelled by scrappage scheme incentives. BMW UK though has reported an increase of 40.6% on its new cars sales for January 2011 compared to the same time last year.

The SMMT reported that the worst performing sector was the supermini while the executive sector fared much better. For the past few years people have been downsizing meaning that the small and supermini sectors have been thriving but as the economy starts to recover and peoples’ confidence grows they are indulging in bigger luxury vehicles. This trend suits BMW perfectly as it specialises in premium executive vehicles such as the BMW Z4 in Edinburgh.

Tim Abbott, Managing Director of BMW Group UK said, "Despite challenging market conditions, we have seen the best ever start to a year for BMW brand sales. We have sold twice as many X Series models compared to January last year with sales from the new X3 model starting to come through and evidence that the poor weather conditions lead to increased demand particularly for the X5. We have also benefited from continuing high demand from our corporate customers for the fuel efficient 320d ED and the new 5 Series. However, MINI saw a drop in sales this month due to many of our customers taking advantage of December delivery to beat the VAT increase."

In total 8,726 BMW models were sold in January 2011 which is a growth of 67.2% and represents 6.7% of the UK market. A total of 1,614 MINI models were sold which in comparison to last January’s 2,135 units is a decrease of 24.4%. Therefore the total growth for BMW Group was 40.6%.

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