Munich car maker moves above Mercedes for the first time in five years to become the top-selling premium brand.
BMW achieved its highest annual sales figures to date with growth of 9.1 per cent in 2021, despite supply bottlenecks and issues caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s performance M also recorded its best year of sales ever.
The German manufacturer sold a total of 2,213,795 units worldwide, making it the number one brand in the global premium segment.
BMW attributes the significant growth to its recently updated line-up, its “powerful operational performance” and a “clear focus” on ramping up its electric vehicle production.
Sales of the firm’s electric models rose 70.4 per cent year on year to reach a total of 328,316 EVs sold across both the BMW and Mini brands.
Worldwide, around 13 per cent of all BMW and Mini cars sold in 2021 were electrified. One in 10 BMW X3s sold was fully electric. The i3 also achieved significant growth, with sales up 5.4 per cent to 28,216 units sold. A third of Mini 3-Door Hatch models sold were fully electric as the brand sold 24,851 units for impressive growth of 98.2 per cent.
“In 2022, we want to continue our profitable growth and we will systematically expand our range of fully electric vehicles,” said Pierter Nota, BMW board member for sales. “We have set ourselves particularly ambitious growth targets in this area and aim to more than double our sales of fully electric vehicles from last year.”
BMW’s M performance arm also posted all-time record sales, delivering 163,542 vehicles to customers in 2021. The firm says the M3 and M4 were standout performers, with the X5 M and X6 M SUVs also doing well.
A record 846,237 BMW and Mini vehicles were delivered in China for growth of 8.9 per cent. Sales of electric models rose 69.6 per cent in the country, with 21,000 BMW iX3 models sold.
Jack Warrick