The monthly race, which becomes an annual race, for luxury car sales in the United States really has only two contestants — Mercedes and BMW. Managements at the two automakers say they do not care which company wins in terms of unit sales. Profits are more important than sales, each one claims. But bragging rights are worth something. The momentum of those rights went to BMW last month.
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.
ALSO READ: Ford October Auto Sales Better Than Expected, but Still Weak
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