BMW Group UK reports positive March sales

The BMW Group in the UK (BMW and MINI combined) has reported March sales of 24,395 vehicles, an increase of 14 per cent from the 21,630 vehicles sold in the same month of 2009.  For the first quarter, the BMW Group also reported a total sales volume of 35,864 vehicles, up 17 per cent compared to 30,618 vehicles sold in the first three months of last year.

“This month concludes a very positive first quarter for BMW Group in the UK,” said Tim Abbott, Managing Director of BMW Group UK.  “Following the successful market introduction of our new 5 Series towards the end of March, we have already received over 3,300 advance orders of which nearly half are for the new 520d which goes on sales in June. The BMW 320d EfficientDynamics Saloon, launched in March, has already proved very popular with customers with around 50 per cent of our 2010 sales volume sold. This underlines the continuing strength of the BMW brand and the desirability of not only the new models we are launching in the premium sector such as the X1, but also in our used car values which are showing encouraging signs of recovery.  MINI has also had a good start to the year, led by a particularly strong performance from our MINI Convertible models.”

BMW Brand Sales
Sales of BMW brand vehicles increased five per cent in March with a total of 16,478 vehicles, mainly driven by BMW’s 1 Series (5,325 units; +33%), the BMW 3 Series Saloon and Touring (4,595; +36%) and the BMW 7 Series which saw sales more than double compared to March last year.  From January to March, BMW brand sales were up 12 per cent to 24,837 vehicles compared to 22,144 vehicles sold in the same period of 2009.

MINI Brand Sales
With a record March market share of 1.99 per cent, MINI UK’s sales volume increased by 33 per cent in March compared to the 5,976 vehicles reported in the same month a year ago.  Year-to-date, MINI UK also reported sales of 11,027 vehicles, an increase of 30 per cent.