COVID has clearly hurt BMW in North America. For the quarter BMW USA sales were down 16.2% compared to the previous year. In total the company moved 69,570 cars and crossovers during one of the most difficult periods in US economic history.

While the COVID slowdown has hurt sales, so has plant shutdowns and a lack of inventory. BMW is telling us that the majority of those issues are behind it and while they don’t break out sales monthly anymore, they are strongly hinting that August and September saw dramatically better sales than June and July.
 
 “We are pleased that demand for BMW vehicles remains strong, and proud of our dealer network for the way they have adapted to this situation by accepting a higher number of advanced orders. “As a result, the percentage of vehicles arriving pre-sold to customers is twice as high as prior to the pandemic, and recovery rates outperformed our projections.  For these reasons, we remain cautiously optimistic as we enter the fourth quarter.”

Bernhard Kuhnt, president and CEO, BMW of North America

BMW Pre-Owned Vehicles 

  • BMW Certified Pre-Owned sold 28,520 vehicles during the third quarter of 2020, a decrease of 3.5% from the same quarter a year ago.
  • Total BMW Pre-Owned sold 57,164 vehicles during the third quarter of 2020, a decrease of 9.2% from the same quarter a year ago. 
BMW USA sales