BMW lead rivals in 2013

BMW retain lead at the top

The German mass market manufacturer, BMW, retained its title of being the worlds leading premium car manufacturer last year. During the year of 2013, BMW recorded sales of 1,963,789 and outsold major rivals such as the Audi and Mercedes brands.

Audi sold approximately 1.605 million units of models, whilst Mercedes only managed to achieve 1.461 million. Profitability for the brands also increased by as much as 4.5% compared to that of 2012.

BMW posted impressive figures for all three brands worldwide with the base brand of BMW increasing by a massive 7.5 per cent, Mini by 1.2 per cent and the luxury brand Rolls Royce increased sales by 1.5 per cent.

Mini achieved impressive sales figures despite having a number of models in its last year before another generation of models was added to the market. Surprisingly, the Mini Countryman model now accounts for up to a third of all Mini models sold. It will therefore come as no surprise that the firm want to build upon the success and develop the model further.

The BMW 3 Series model remained the biggest seller and impressively increased sales by as much as 30 per cent. However, this comes after the somewhat struggling year of 2012 of which a considerable amount of manufacturers struggled for sales. Both the Saloon and the Touring versions of the 3 Series range have been in demand during the year of 2013 with sales expected to further increase in 2014.

The 6 Series range of models also posted a healthy increase in sales. The increase was believed to be solely down to the four door Gran Coupe model, the new model has also outsold the 6 Series standard Coupe model and the convertible model.

However, during the first two months of 2014 Audi have posted big increases of sales which has actually taken the brand above BMW and pushed owners Volkswagen towards the target of achieving 10,000,000 sales during one year of operation.