BMW sales in China rises 43% in Q1

Shanghai, April 9 (Gasgoo.com) The German luxury car making group BMW AG has delivered 14,574 units of BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce brand cars in China in the first quarter of 2008, up 43.2% over the same period of 2007.

The sales increase was attributed to the higher-than-expected demand for luxury brand vehicles in the Chinese market. J.D. Power & Associates expects that sales of luxury brands in China will more than double by 2014, to around 508,000 units from last year's level.

In an effort to meet the burgeoning demands, the automaker is planning to boost capacity at its joint venture plant with Brilliance Auto to 44,000 vehicles annually from the current 30,000 a year.

The company is also reportedly planning to build another 100,000-vehicles-a-year plant in China this year as sales growth in the market is increasingly challenged by output capacity. Not only BMW 3 and 5 series, but also BMW 1 series will be produced at the second plant.

Globally, BMW reported overall sales of 351,787 units, 5.7% more than the first quarter of 2007.

Besides in China, strong sales increases were also posted in Russia and South Korea, all of which turned in rises of almost 40%. The biggest increase for BMW was in India, where there was a leap of 800% to 862 cars, India's Economic Times reports.

However, sales fell by 9.2% in the United States, which nonetheless remained the biggest single market with more than 68,500 cars bought in the three-month period.

Some other European markets saw good Q1 results. Sales in Portugal, for example, rose 29.2% to 2,860 units. In France, deliveries rose 23.7% to 16,752, in Italy by 9.8% to 27,112 and in Britain/Ireland by 6.9% to 45,210 vehicles.