BMW Vehicle Deliveries Rise as Strength in Europe Offsets China Weakness
The result marks a contrast to rival Mercedes-Benz, which earlier this week reported a 9% drop in vehicle sales
BMW BMW 0.63%increase; green up pointing triangle group vehicle deliveries rose slightly in the second quarter as the German automaker saw strong growth in Europe offset hefty declines in China, while deliveries in the U.S. edged higher.
The company, which houses its namesake brand as well as the Mini and Rolls-Royce marques and a motorcycles business, said sales rose 0.4% in the period to 621,271 million vehicles.
The result marks a contrast to rival Mercedes-Benz, which earlier this week reported a 9% drop in vehicle sales on weakness in the U.S. and China after President Trump slapped a 25% duty on imported cars and parts entering the U.S. in early April.
BMW has previously cautioned that tariffs would take a toll on its second-quarter results, but has expected levies to go down from July and that its impact on earnings would ease in the second half. In China, pricing was a headwind in the first months of this year, mainly due to challenges in the country’s highly competitive market.
The company said Thursday that sales of BMW branded cars and Minis in China fell 13.7% to 162,667 units in the second quarter. That compares to a 10.1% rise in European sales to 255,910 cars and a 1.4% rise to 98,504 cars in the U.S.
The group’s electrified models saw sales growth of 10.2% in the year, with BMW branded plug-in hybrids seeing a surge in demand and the Mini brand’s fully-electric models experiencing strong global demand.
“New orders across all drive technologies developed positively in the first six months, showing significant year-on-year growth,” the company said.