BMW US July year-on-year sales dropped 4.4% to 25,777 units delivered. Despite the drop, it’s the first single digit percentage drop in monthly year on year sales for quite a while. An interesting twist is that despite the US buying preference shift to CUVs and SUVs, sedan sales were up in July while light truck sales dropped! This was driven by growth in all sedan series except the 3/4 series, that dropped from 10,919 to 8,985 units delivered for the month.

BMW_NA_July_2016_Sales_Numbers

Overall, US light vehicle sales were up slightly (0.5%, pending reports from Jaguar/Land Rover and Porsche). Most automotive forecasters think that total sales this year will plateau at about last years levels, meaning that the 6 year bull market on light vehicle sales is pretty much done. Matt’s Luxury Index shows a much slightly better picture, up 3.3%. The luxury leaders are Jaguar, up a shocking 174% and Volvo, up 52.8%. Both companies new model introductions appear to have invigorated the brands. BMW is in a statistical dead heat with Lexus at just over 179,000 units delivered year to date, but both are well behind Mercedes-Benz that has delivered a bit over 210,000 units.

MLI072016

Used vehicles sales are particularly strong for BMW. This is for two reasons: The first is that more and more deliveries are via lease, and all these chickens are coming home to roost. While BMW leases a lot of new vehicles, this is a trend across many brands and used car inventory is very high, depressing prices across the whole industry. The second reason is that BMW did push dealers to take extra cars into dealer loaner fleets at the end of last year, and these cars are being sold as very, very low mileage used cars.

 

Official Release: Woodcliff Lake, NJ – August 2, 2016… Sales of BMW brand vehicles decreased 4.4 percent in July for a total of 25,777 compared to 26,970 vehicles sold in July, 2015.  Year-to-date, the BMW brand is down 8.4 percent in the U.S. on sales of 179,213 compared to 195,593 sold in the first seven months of 2015.

Notable vehicle sales include the BMW 7 Series which increased 31.3 percent, the BMW 2 Series which increased 66.1 percent, and the BMW X1 which increased 79.1 percent.

“The volatility that has characterized the 2016 sales year was clearly evident in the beginning of the third quarter,” said Ludwig Willisch, President and CEO, BMW of North America. “As we have seen through the early months of the year, the 2 Series and X1 have acquired a strong following and the 7 Series continues gaining ground.  At the same time, the global popularity of our X models continues to constrain our sales here in the U.S.”

BMW Group Sales
In total, the BMW Group in the U.S. (BMW and MINI combined) reported July sales of 30,551 vehicles, a decrease of 5.0 percent from the 32,161 vehicles sold in the same month a year ago.  Year-to-date, BMW Group sales are down 9.5 percent on sales of 209,131 in the first seven months of 2016 compared to 231,044 in the same period in 2015.
BMW Pre-Owned Vehicles

  • July 2016 sales of BMW Certified Pre-Owned set a record with 11,877 vehicles, an increase of 23.1 percent from July 2015.
  • Total BMW Pre-Owned sales also set a record with 22,739 vehicles, an increase of 49.1 percent from July 2015.
  • The Total BMW Pre-Owned cars sold year-to-date were 121,506, a 12.1 percent increase from the first seven months of 2015.