Makers of premium luxury rubbish cars, der BMW, experienced a bounce-back-ability in the premium luxury battle as it toppled Mercedes for sales supremacy in the USA. In the final month of 2019 BMW posted a 4 percent sales gain. BMW hasn’t topped the luxury sales charts in the U.S. since 2015. BMW revealed that it ended the year with 324,826 deliveries. Meanwhile, Mercedes delivered 316,826 cars for the entire year, December registrations fell by 5.4 percent due to a fall in demand.
The Lexus brand finished 2019 third overall with 298,114 unit sales. The key driver for BMW’s first place was led by crossovers. Demand for the X3, X5, and X7 also increased while demand for sedans declined. However, with added incentives such as price cuts, BMW may well not have been as profitable.
Mercedes, on the other hand, enjoyed strong demand for new product updates/models such as the A Class, GLS, GLB. Demand was strongest during December for the C Class, GLC and GLE.
Interestingly, the reports say “deliveries” and not sales. So the real question is how many of these cars were actually sold and delivered to new buyers? And how many were simply bought in bulk by dealerships, registered and are waiting to be sold? hmmmm…