The German luxury car maker BMW yesterday said its sales rose further last month, with a leap in China, news echoed by German rival Audi.
Deliveries of BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce cars rose by 2 percent from the level in October last year to 113,011 units, after showing a 12-month increase in September for the first time for a year.
Chinese sales leaped by 81 percent last month to 9,558 units, a statement said, and emerging markets in general have already reported more sales than in all of last year, it said.
Audi, a premium brand of the Volkswagen group, said that last month’s sales gained 0.4 percent to 82,750 units, also aided by soaring demand in China.
For the rest of the world, “we expect more solid progression in November and December,” BMW sales director Ian Robertson was quoted as saying.
Audi forecast overall sales this year of 925,000 cars, well above its initial target of 900,000.
“Our sales figures worldwide have developed much better than expected,” Audi sales chief Peter Schwarzenbauer was quoted by a statement as saying.
Meanwhile, BMW’s brand turned in last month its first sales increase in a year, edging up by 0.4 percent to 95,859 units.
On a 10-month basis, however, overall group sales still showed a decline of 14 percent from the same period last year, and the company expects full-year sales to be 10 percent to 15 percent lower than last year.
Luxury cars are nonetheless beginning to move off of dealers’ lots after missing out on government car-scrapping schemes that mainly boosted sales of small cars.
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