What's the news?
BMW Group has announced its best-ever March and first quarter sales results with a total number of 526,669 deliveries marking an 8.1 per cent increase over the same period last year.
Globally the BMW Group, which includes MINI and luxury brand Rolls-Royce, delivered 232,556 vehicles in the month of March, which marked a 9.2 per cent growth over the same period last year. Buoyed by the continued economic growth the European market saw the greatest rise in growth with an 11.8 per cent increase in deliveries of BMW and MINI models.
In the North American market, the best performing of all the Americas, BMW also saw growth and recorded a 12.2 per cent increase in March versus the previous year. Also performing well is the Asian market with a 5.2 per cent growth in the first quarter and South Korea coming out as a market leader with a 17.6 per cent increase in sales during the month of March resulting in 4,340 vehicles.
The electrified BMW i sub brand also had a positive March period, registering sales in excess of 2,600 cars, some 2,067 of which were the i3. Demand remains high for the i8 sports car, and it now seems that the early delays in production are starting to be alleviated.
Anything else?
Not performing as well is Rolls-Royce, which delivered 781 cars during its first quarter of 2015, a 12.9 per cent decline over the previous year. BMW says that these figures were in line with expectations and are within the company's planning cycle. With this not so positive news coming it is little surprise that ahead of the first quarter results Rolls-Royce set the world of automotive journalism alight by revealing a spectacular looking development prototype that will go on to become its new SUV.