BMW increases leads over rivals in global sales for August 2011

BMW sold 20,815 cars in August, an increase of 6.5% over the same month in 2010. This marks the fifth straight month that BMW has been top of the luxury car sales charts in 2011. Comparatively, rivals Mercedes-Benz sold 18,477 units in August, a decline of 1.9%, while Lexus saw a sharper decline of 7%, with 18,103 cars sold, as the Japanese carmaker continues to suffer the effects of the devastating March 11 Japanese earthquake.

“This has been a very strange August for our industry, with difficult news and unfortunate events –consumer confidence down and an earthquake, hurricanes and floods in the Northeast”, said head of BMW North America, Jim O’Donnell.

Despite that statement, BMW has seen its lead at the top increase by 12% since the start of the year, delivering a total of 155,929 cars so far. Its August sales were boosted considerably by the 41% increase in 5-Series deliveries and by the new X3, which almost tripled its sales, from 892 cars in 2010 to 2,382 this year. Mercedes-Benz has also seen an overall increase in sales for the year, by 6.1% to 148,409 units, while Lexus has seen a drop of 17% with 120,652 cars sold.