BMW Group sales record in Asia 2006

[xtrack]

BMW Group sales record in Asia in 2006 With total sales of 126,949 vehicles during 2006, the BMW Group again achieved a new sales record in Asia, making the group the leading car company in the region’s premium segment for the 4th consecutive year. Retail figures for BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce cars delivered to customers were up 13.8% with BMW vehicles alone gaining 15.5%, rising from 95,116 units to 109,848 units. The MINI brand continued to enjoy growth in Asia with sales of 16,959 cars (+3.7%) while Rolls-Royce delivered 142 Phantoms to customers in Asia last year (+39.2%). BMW Motorrad delivered 3,620 (previous year: 3,622) motorcycles throughout the region.On a worldwide basis, the BMW Group increased sales by 3.5% with the delivery of 1,373,970 vehicles (previous year: 1,327,992). Global sales of the BMW brand, at 1,185,088 vehicles, outstripped the previous year's figure (1,126,768) by 5.2%.“The BMW Group grew more strongly in Asia than in any other region of the world,” said Dr. Michael Ganal, Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG. “This means that we are going to strengthen our presence in the individual markets in the years to come. We will continue our product and market initiative and invest further.”Key product highlights of the BMW Group for Asia in 2007 included launches of the new 3 Series Coupé, new MINI, Z4 Coupé and Z4 M Coupé as well as the new X5. In the Malaysian market, BMW had record sales with 3,472 vehicles delivered to customers (an 8% increase over 2005). The results, which flew in the face of a declining market, exhibited the fastest growth rate in its market segment. Like the 3 Series, the BMW 5 Series achieved market leadership. Dr Ganal also mentioned that the BMW Group had concluded an agreement with Sime Darby Berhad to acquire the local enterprises SimeLease and its subsidiary SimeCredit, a precursor to BMW Financial Services entering the Malaysian market, pending the government’s Foreign Investment Committee’s approval.The forecast of the BMW Group for 2007 remains optimistic. “We expect the BMW Group’s retail growth to stay on a high level. This year, we already plan to meet our 2008 retail target of 1.4 million vehicles. Three years ago, we set an annual retail target for Asia of 150,000 vehicles to be sold by 2008. We also intend to move a fair step closer to this target this year,” said Dr. Ganal. On the longer-term outlook in Asia, he said, “The BMW Group considers itself a long-term partner in Asia. This means that we are going to strengthen our presence on the individual markets in the years to come and we plan to invest further in these markets.” Hurray!! Well done BMW. Hopefully they set another record in 2007 and remain the leader in the region’s premium segment for the 5th consecutive year

 

[E46Fanatic]

My AB saleslady told me that SimeCredit (now owned by BMW Malaysia) are working out some attractive financing packages and should be out anytime now. I suspect it'll be after CNY (car sales spikes before CNY and then drops), to generate some momentum of sales post CNY.

0% financing will be nice LOL, and if there ever was such a thing, it would probably come from BMW's own financing arm I think.