BMW Stomps Mercedes in October

Momentum means something too. In October, BMW sales rose 11% to 30,602. Mercedes sold a few more cars — 30,733. However, its sales dropped 4.3% from October of last year. For the first 10 months, the news was just as bad for Mercedes, in terms of growth rate. Its sales are up 7.5% to 281,728, but BMW sales for the same period rose 11.3% to 267,193.

BMW’s improvement was mostly from the heart of its line-up. The new 3-Series and 4-Series, which used to be one series and are now two, posted sales up 16.3% to 13,621. Sales of the flagship 7-Series were modest, which should be expected for a car that can cost nearly $100,000. They reached 1,680, but that was up 169.7%. Another workhorse of the line-up, the X5 SUV series, posted a sales increase of 56.8% to 3,355. The brand’s biggest stumble was sales of the smaller X3 SUV, which fell 42.9% to 1,610.

Mercedes sold a lot of SUVs last month. Sales of its M-Class rose 22% to 3,797. Sales of the expensive S-Class cars rose 39.3% to 2,666. Mercedes suffered in large part due to weakness in the middle and bottom of its line-up. E-Class sales fell 39% to 3,936, and CLA sales fell 47% to 2,596. CLA sales will not be helped in the future by the new Consumer Reports rating, which said it was one of the least reliable “new luxury car[s] you can buy.”

It is worth noting that Audi continues to claw its way into contention with the top two German manufacturers, and it is doing a good job. October sales rose 16.5% to 15,150. For the first 10 months, sales rose 14.7% to 146,133.

One thing all three luxury car companies can celebrate is that their growth rates were well above the entire industry in October, which rose 6.1% to 1,281,313.

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