In the second quarter of 2015, German luxury carmaker BMW’s automotive segment revenues rose 17% to €21.65 billion (about $23.76 billion), while EBIT declined nearly 16%, which the company said was driven by “ever-fiercer” competition in individual markets. The other issue is that BMW sold more, less costly, compact cars.

Group sales rose by 9.5% to 488,490 units in the first six months of 2015, and revenues rose 17.6% to €44.85 billion. Pretax profit rose 7.5% to more than €5 billion, the first time that level of profit has been reached.

The number of vehicles sold in Germany during this period increased by 2.6% to 137,830 units. Great Britain — the BMW Group’s fourth largest market — saw a 15.2% increase to 110,822 units during the six-month period, while the number of vehicles sold in France rose by 22.6% to 38,670 units. An increase of 8.5% was recorded in Italy, with sales volume rising to 35,980 units.

Sales of BMW and MINI vehicles in Asia grew by 4.4% to 337,107 units for the six-month period, including a 2.3% increase in sales on the Chinese mainland to 230,788 units. Double-digit growth rates were recorded in Japan, with six-month sales climbing by 10.6% to 33,960 units.

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Sales in the United States rose 9.6% to 199,418 units in the first half of the year.

The BMW brand recorded a new sales volume high in the second quarter, up 4.9%, with 480,465 units delivered to customers. Sales volume for the six-month period grew by 5.2% to 932,041 units. Momentum was provided by numerous models, including the midsize SUVs (BMW X5 and X6) as well as the compact 2 and 4 Series.

BMW sold 64,285 units of the 2 Series in the first six months of 2015, about five times the previous year’s sales total. Sales of the BMW 3 Series declined 7.2% to 219,369 units, partly due to the fact that the convertible and coupé models are now reported as part of the BMW 4 Series. By the same token, these models helped boost worldwide sales of the BMW 4 Series by nearly 70% to 79,351 units

The BMW X5 saw sales volume rise by 25.9% to 85,983 units during the first six months of the year. Sales volume figures for the BMW X6 were equally strong, rising by 22.7% to 22,125 units. The new BMW X4 sold 28,146 units. The BMW i electric cars continued to make good progress, with sales more than doubling to 12,562 units.

Sales of the company’s MINI brand rose nearly 24% in the second quarter and nearly 26% in the first six months of the year. The Rolls-Royce division delivered 1,769 cars in the first half of the year, down about 10%.

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