Despite the pandemic and a global semiconductors supply crisis, the BMW Group has reported year-on-year sales growth of 8.4% last year, with a total of 2,521,525 BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce vehicles delivered.
BMW sales reached a new all-time high of 2,213,795 units (+9.1%) last year.
BMW Group more than doubled its sales of fully-electric vehicles in 2021 to 103,855 units (+133.2%).
“Despite supply bottlenecks and the continuing coronavirus pandemic: We achieved a strong sales performance in 2021, thanks to a powerful operational performance and stellar product line-up. Our brands reported numerous all-time best sales results around the globe – spearheaded by the BMW brand, which is number one in the global premium segment,” said Pieter Nota, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG responsible for Customer, Brands, Sales. “With more than 100,000 fully-electric vehicles sold last year, ramping up electromobility was our clear focus,” Nota added.
BMW was upbeat about 2022 prospects. “In 2022 we want to continue our profitable growth and we will systematically expand our range of fully-electric vehicles. We have set ourselves particularly ambitious growth targets in this area and aim to more than double our sales of fully-electric vehicles from last year,” Nota said.
BMW highlighted the introduction of the BMW iX and BMW i4 and a significantly expanded digitalisation of the customer interface. Pre-configured new vehicles and newer used cars across the entire model range can already be bought online in the BMW Group’s domestic market of Germany. By 2025, the company plans to sell around a quarter of its vehicles entirely online.
In 2021, 13 percent of BMW and MINI vehicles sold worldwide – a total of 328,316 units (+70.4 %) – were electrified. In Europe it was more than 23 percent (225,415 units).
The BMW Group released two key innovation flagships, the BMW iX and the BMW i4, onto the market late last year. In 2022, the company will further expand its electric line-up with fully-electric versions of the BMW 7 Series and BMW X1 and, in 2023, the high-volume BMW 5 Series. These will be joined by other models, including the successor to the MINI Countryman and the all-electric Rolls-Royce Spectre.
By 2023, the company will have at least one fully-electric model on the roads in about 90 percent of its current market segments. Over the next ten years or so, the company plans to sell a total of about ten million fully-electric vehicles.
The MINI brand’s product range will be exclusively all-electric by the early 2030s, while Rolls-Royce will also be an all-electric brand from 2030 onwards. All future new models from BMW Motorrad in the field of urban mobility will be fully electric.
The MINI brand delivered 302,144 vehicles to customers last year – 3.3 percent more than in 2020. Around 17 percent of these vehicles had an electrified drive train. More than one in ten MINI customers opted for the fully-electric MINI: the MINI Cooper SE (34,851 units). The MINI Electric is the MINI family’s highest-volume model.
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars posts highest sales in its history
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars reported the highest sales in the brand’s 117-year history, with 5,586 units sold worldwide (+48.7%). This overall figure includes all-time record sales in most regions, including Greater China, the Americas and Asia-Pacific, and in multiple countries across the world. The past year was characterised by high demand worldwide for all models, particularly Ghost and Cullinan and all Black Badge variants, with current orders extending well into the third quarter of 2022. Bespoke commissions were at record levels and the company announced, alongside the launch of Boat Tail, that Rolls-Royce Coachbuild would become a permanent fixture in its future portfolio. The marque continues to evolve as a true luxury house and now prepares for the historic market introduction of its first all-electric motor car, Spectre, in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Record China sales and strong growth in US
In China, the BMW Group posted record sales. A total of 846,237 BMW and MINI vehicles were delivered to customers in China (+8.9%). Sales of electrified vehicles in China continued to gain momentum with growth of 69.6 percent and more than 21,000 units of the BMW iX3. The company’s fifth-largest market, South Korea, also increased its sales by 11.0 percent in 2021, with 77,592 units sold.
In the US, BMW brand deliveries climbed 20.8 percent to 336,644 units and were therefore on a par with the pre-crisis year 2019. The MINI brand sold 29,930 vehicles in the US in 2021 – an increase of 6.4 percent compared to the previous year. The BMW X model range accounted for 60 percent of total US sales last year.
In Europe, total sales figures for BMW and MINI reached 948,087 units (+3.9%). Belgium marked a historic first for the company, as the BMW brand led a country’s total market in Europe for the first time.