BMW tops Lexus for 3rd month, aims for luxury lead

Bayerische Motoren Werke AG's BMW brand outsold Toyota Motor Corp.'s Lexus division for a third straight month in May, challenging the Japanese maker's nine- year reign as the top seller of luxury vehicles in the U.S.

Sales totaled 18,383 for the BMW brand, a 28 percent drop from a year earlier, the Munich-based company said in an e- mailed statement. Lexus reported 16,922 vehicles sold, a decline of 36 percent.

A Lexus loss of the lead in full-year U.S. luxury sales would be another blow for Toyota City, Japan-based Toyota, which posted its first annual loss in 59 years for the period that ended in March. The BMW brand is ahead of Lexus 76,819 to 73,186 after this year's first five months.

"Lexus tends to be more of a family-oriented buyer, versus some of the BMW buyers that might skew a little bit toward the empty nesters that are at a different place on the wealth curve," said Craig Johnson, president of retail-consulting firm Customer Growth Partners LLC in New Canaan, Connecticut.

Lexus has led annual U.S. luxury-vehicle sales since 2000, when it displaced Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz, according to Autodata Corp., based in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey.

That ranking has "never been our goal," Mark Templin, manager of the Lexus brand, said on a conference call today. He declined to comment about BMW outselling the Toyota division so far this year.