Mercedes-Benz is the premium car market leader in May and in the first five months of 2016. Mercedes sales lead over BMW continues to increase from month to month.
Mercedes leads the world premium car market in the first five months of 2016 with 818,175 cars followed by BMW with 797,457, while Audi is the third with 784,250.
Thanks to a double digit sales increase, Mercedes is also leader with 170,625 units in May (12.9%) compared with 168,129 BMWs and 164,150 Audis.
But the most important thing in this picture is another figure. Mercedes sales increase with a higher rate than BMW: 12.3% compared with only 5.0% for BMW in the first five months. And the same evolution is valid for May sales, with 12.9% sales increase for Mercedes compared with 5.60% for BMW.
We cannot compare the sales by regions due to the fact that BMW announce only common sales BMW and Mini by regions.
By models, the Mercedes compact range has increased to a new record in May to 53,618 units delivered to customers (+15.6%). The compact range is particularly popular in China where unit sales more than doubled in May.
The SUVs continued to make on of the highest contributions to the growth of Mercedes-Benz with sales of 58,517 units last month, which represent a 42% increase compared with May 2015.
The strongest growth in May was posted by the new GLC which is available also as a Plug-In Hybrid version.
May saw strong growth in the sales of many BMW models such as the BMW 2 Series (16,823/47.6%), the BMW X1 (13,884/47.8%), the BMW X4 (4,947/13.0%) and the BMW 7 Series (4,539/32.4%).
In case of Audi, besides the Q7 (9.050 cars, +79.6%) and the A4 Sedan and Avant (31,000 cars, +16.2%) the TT and Q3 recorded high growth rates last month. TT sales increased by 18.2% to 2,900 units while the Q3 was up 19.7% with around 19,700 units.
Brand | May 2016 | % May 2015 | Jan-May 2016 | % Jan-May 2015 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Mercedes-Benz | 170,625 | 12.90% | 818,175 | 12.30% |
Europe | 74,268 | 14.20% | 357,924 | 13.20% |
- thereof Germany | 23,343 | 4.90% | 113,966 | 7.90% |
NAFTA | 34,323 | -0.50% | 156,267 | -0.30% |
-thererof USA | 29,299 | -1.00% | 134,304 | -2.00% |
Asia/Pacific | 57,438 | 24.2% | 282,466 | 22.90% |
- thereof Japan | 4,602 | 7.00% | 25,764 | -1.90% |
- thereof China | 38,271 | 38.90% | 180,537 | 35.90% |
Audi | 164,15 | 6.70% | 784,250 | 5.30% |
Europe | 76,000 | 9.70% | 376,600 | 8.20% |
-thereof Germany | 28,031 | 13.40% | 138,138 | 11.80% |
USA | 18,728 | 1.60% | 78,489 | 4.20% |
China | 50,002 | 5.50% | 239,118 | 5.80% |
BMW | 168,129 | 5.60% | 797,457 | 5.00% |
Europe | 91,347* | 11.90% | 432,545 | 10.30% |
-thereof Germany | 21,829 | 14.30% | ||
Asia | 58,725* | 6.30% | 293,188 | 6.20% |
-thereof China | 40,123* | 7.10% | ||
NAFTA | 42,066* | -7.30% | 180,099 | 7.90% |
-thereof USA | 33,612 | -8.80% | ||
BMW communicate global sales with Mini by regions therefore we cannot make a direct comparison by regions with Mercedes and Audi |