Deliveries of BMW Group vehicles in March reaches a new high

Deliveries of BMW Group vehicles in March reached a new high, contributing to the company's best ever first quarter sales figures.

A total of 195,593 BMW brand vehicles were delivered to customers in March, a new high for the month (increase of 5.1 percent). It has also been the best ever first quarter for the brand with a total of 451,576 vehicles sold around the world, an increase of 5.4 percent on the same period last year.

The new BMW 2 Series continues to be in high demand with around two-thirds of those sales achieved by the new 2 Series Active Tourer, with a total of 9,790 units delivered to customers. Sales of the BMW 4 Series remained strong with 18,373 delivered in March. Meanwhile, the great sales success of the segment-founding BMW X family continues with deliveries of the third generation BMW X5 up 12.1 percent to 15,289, while sales of the BMW X6 climbed 5.4 percent to total 3,880.

Over 2,600 innovative electric BMW i vehicles were sold in March. Sales of the BMW i3 were higher than in any previous month, with a total of 2,067 delivered to customers, and demand for the BMW i8 - the newly crowned World Green Car of the Year - remains very strong.

Sales of MINI brand vehicles saw a significant increase compared to March last year, when sales were affected by the core model changeover. In March 2015, MINI deliveries rose 38.9 percent with sales in the first three months of the year climbing to 74,312, an increase of 28.4 percent on the same period last year.

Asia also saw steady growth in March with deliveries in the region totalling 64,988, an increase of 4.8 percent compared with the same month last year. Sales also rose in the first quarter as a whole, with 166,330 BMW and MINI vehicles delivered to customers, up 5.2 percent on the same period in 2014. In March, sales in mainland China grew by 8.1 percent to total 43,824, while South Korea saw deliveries rise by 17.6 percent to 4,340.