BMW Group U.S. Reports April 2016 Sales

[cc3]

BMW needs to wake up. Poor design, wrong strategy by investing in far too many niches, front wheel drive 2 Series is a poor car even dealers don't like them. For private buyers resale values are tumbling due to heavy discounting. Ultimate Driving Machine? Not many of those now. The odd highlight like M2 , i8. Tesla has it licked with i cars although i3 has potential but over priced.

Next G series cars will need to be amazing but signs are no real movement on design. So new products from Jag, Merc etc will really hurt BMW. Shame as I love my BMW's but struggle to get really excited about a lot of the range. So few 5 star models now

[David70]

Originally Posted by stealth-twntrbo

BMW is cutting production by approx 50k units this year. Due to demand in new vehicles CPO and pre-owned will be a focus.

How does a car manufacturer focus on used cars? At best it might be something the dealer can do.

[bayarea328xit]

Originally Posted by timcschmidt

What is up with the 7 series sales. Can't believe the g model is so much less popular than the f.

Yes, very strange. Here in the bay area, dealers are listing the new 7 at 10% below MSRP:

http://www.stevenscreekbmw.com/new-inventory/index.htm

[AndreyATC]

It's insane how much $$ dealers make on the customer
If they are able to discount this much, I can only imagine how much they pocket on each sale, especially when they don't offer large discounts

There is a good reason they often called "stealerships"

[Alpine300zhp]

Originally Posted by bayarea328xit

Yes, very strange. Here in the bay area, dealers are listing the new 7 at 10% below MSRP:

http://www.stevenscreekbmw.com/new-inventory/index.htm

I am not surprised. I looked at the new 7. For what it costs, it comes off as cheap and uninspiring. That combined with lackluster residuals are why they are not selling.

[Matski]

Originally Posted by AndreyATC

It's insane how much $$ dealers make on the customer

How much do they make?

[David70]

Originally Posted by Matski

How much do they make?

X2, also interested and how much is reasonable when selling a $100k car and having to spend a massive amount of money on the facility and overhead?

[bodonx]

Originally Posted by AndreyATC

It's insane how much $$ dealers make on the customer
If they are able to discount this much, I can only imagine how much they pocket on each sale, especially when they don't offer large discounts

There is a good reason they often called "stealerships"

Dealers don't make money selling new cars.

They just do it for obligation to use BMW name.

They use BMW name to make big margin on service department to cover the overhead on new car sales.

[m34m]

The US economy is a disaster and the mighty giant in serious decline. This and the decline of BMW's products over the last several years where they did not stay true to who they were. Deny away.

[Matski]

Originally Posted by m34m

The US economy is a disaster and the mighty giant in serious decline. This and the decline of BMW's products over the last several years where they did not stay true to who they were. Deny away.

Fortunately the diversification of the product line (or "not staying true to who they were" as your put it) has meant that sales in all other major territories have increased, and overall the company is up. No denying BMW's sales in the US are down, so there is clearly a problem somewhere, but it's foolish to blame it on product diversifictation. Premium/Luxury sedan sales are suffering across the board, you'd rather see BMW stagnate and die?

[m34m]

Originally Posted by Matski

Fortunately the diversification of the product line (or "not staying true to who they were" as your put it) has meant that sales in all other major territories have increased, and overall the company is up. No denying BMW's sales in the US are down, so there is clearly a problem somewhere, but it's foolish to blame it on product diversifictation. Premium/Luxury sedan sales are suffering across the board, you'd rather see BMW stagnate and die?

They chose quantity over quality. Their bread and butter is the 3 series and let's face it they really blew it. That car went from being the longstanding segment leader by far to a mediocre member of the pack. Look no further. Then they took that mediocre formula and stuffed it into every body style they could dream up. You call it product diversification I call it a failed strategy.

[SCOTT26]

Originally Posted by m34m

They chose quantity over quality. Their bread and butter is the 3 series and let's face it they really blew it. That car went from being the longstanding segment leader by far to a mediocre member of the pack. Look no further. Then they took that mediocre formula and stuffed it into every body style they could dream up. You call it product diversification I call it a failed strategy.

You may call it a failed strategy but that product diversification has proved successful in other key strategic markets. So much so that our competitors are joining us in product diversification.

As I have mentioned before the recently departed members were on other additional projects incase of the i8 developers that were working on the Z5 project with Toyota.

You have written BMWi off too early because it is not just about cars but how we use and develop and produce our cars. Its a philosophy, a philosophy in its infancy. I do not see the rush to fill the portfolio of BMWi because the first generation of cars have to have that establishing period and their success justifies their existence.
Now we move to phase II of BMWi and the next line of progress for the existing models. Then it is time to think about the next step in regards to additional models.
And be assured that the process will involve taking a look at market conventions especially when German manufacturers are selling more SUVs than any other segment which is happening to everybody in the US.

[CSBM5]

Stock has been a never look back short after breaking a 20 day low off the all-time high last year just over 120. It's down about 40% since then (closed at 75 today) and only now is the "fundamental" data starting to show why. Note the profound arrogance by their forum spokesman throughout this whole time. If that is indicative of upper level mgmt, this has the potential to get really interesting rather soon. Once again pointing out how this is so similar to Detroit circa early 1970s or IBM circa early 1990s...

[bavarian19]

Next month they are going to set a sales record by forcing dealerships to each buy 100 new cars for their loaner fleet.

[pbjjj]

Originally Posted by dkhm3

my personal guess is stock prices this year have been very flat.

real estate in the high end - at least in SoCal is flattening out.

the concern about the election is negatively affecting top spenders - even if you vote for Trump, the trade wars he is threatening is concerning to all.

uncertainty is the enemy of growth for sure.

bmw sales are also negatively affected by lack of new product.

new Q7, A4 is out
new GLE, GLC, E CLASS, C CLASS (not so new, but still)

I would predict the rest of the year is going to be slightly worse than the 1st 4 months have shown us.

I agree with the assessment above. I bet when the new X3 is on the market, there will be a big jump in BMW sales. I am also sure G30 5-series will help BMW sales but not quite sure how big of impact it will bring... It will be interesting to see how well the new 5-series will compete with the new MB E-Class.

[stealth-twntrbo]

Originally Posted by David70

How does a car manufacturer focus on used cars? At best it might be something the dealer can do.

BMW has to do something with off lease cars, and they make money from the car being CPO'd that's why it's a focus

[bri1042]

Seems to me like these numbers, while down a bunch, would look better if they hadn't renamed the 4-series in the first place (at least compared to MB USA). Adding up the CLA and C-class, along with the 2, 3, and 4's, which I'm doing as folk seem to shop these cars against each other rather often, BMW is up around 1921 cars for April.

I realize that I'm creating my own class of cars here (which I call "the 5-series is just too big for me" class), but that's me.

Audi, adding the A3, A4, and A5 all together, is down 3022 in April compared to BMW.

Lexus IS and RC, 6220 less than BMW.

Cadillac, I think the ATS is the only model that counts in my made up class of cars, is down 7950 cars. They've sold 3433 less vehicles in my made-up class this YEAR than BMW sold just last month.

One of those BMW's last month was mine. I test drove a bunch of cars over the last year or so before committing to staying with BMW this time. I did not drive the C450, as the two local dealerships I went to didn't seem very interested in earning a sale. The Audi sales folk were great but the S3 I tested wasn't (for many reasons). The 340 won the sale for many, many reasons.

I don't see a lot of doom-and-gloom in these numbers. BMW is down sales in the US, but they have some room before anyone will be crying in the boardroom. Cherry pick one sales stat or the other and it comes off looking worse than it is.

[mkoesel]

I realize that I'm creating my own class of cars here (which I call "the 5-series is just too big for me" class), but that's me.

Actually, I somewhat like your category. Not because it happens to paint BMW in a more positive light, but because I think there is some value in saying "everything smaller than X". Generally, the smaller the car, the lower the cost, and the lower the cost, the more sales. In fact, when it comes to a luxury purchase, many people shop on cost as the biggest priority. And the jump from a 2 to a 3 (or CLA to a C, or A3 to A4) is generally something that could be taken much easier than jumping to the next class up (5/E/A6), so it's a logical "line in the sand".

Anyway, BMW could potentially be doing even better here if they had a 1 or 2 Series sedan to sell. But I think the product planners and marketing folks are more concerned with SUVs right now though - not just at BMW, but at any manufacturer. Not that I disagree fundamentally. In fact, I have been surprised by how stubborn the compact luxury SUV class has been to really take off, contradicting the trends in the smaller non-luxury SUV class. In theory the X1 and its competitors should be tearing it up - a lot seems to be left on the table here right now. They are still largely outsold by bigger, more expensive luxury SUVS. But if you look at the comparable, smaller SUVs from Ford, Chevrolet, Toyota, Honda, the Koreans, etc., they absolute clobber it in sales compared to the larger models from the same brand. Sure, you could say that for a luxury vehicle, people just want bigger and that's that. But if you look at luxury passenger cars, the smaller ones easily outsell the larger ones. And that's obviously due in some part (probably in large part) to price. So why doesn't the same thing hold for SUVs?

[bmwpc]

One of the reasons the X4 and particularly the X4M40i is low is BNW held the cars before shipping to the US, their largest market. My X4M was built on 11/29/15 (a Sunday) yet didn't arrive in the US untilearly March which is more than twice the normal transport time. According to my dealer, a pretty decent sized one, the problem is the dealers are unhappy that BMW is producing so many different models that are very similar and only scavenging their own sales, One instance, the new 1 series, He said the dealers needed that like they needed another Mini model. BMW wanted it to push a lower base price point. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your viewpoint, BMW is trying to become one of the top 5 car builders for the US and also push very heavy into China. They are no longer the niche maker of the 60's through the 90's and that's why they have lost much of their exclusivity/status in the US. They have also softened up a bit as you see in the new m4 and 3 series which are now now no longer the best rated handling cars in their class as they have been for the past 15 years.

[SCOTT26]

Originally Posted by bri1042

Seems to me like these numbers, while down a bunch, would look better if they hadn't renamed the 4-series in the first place (at least compared to MB USA). Adding up the CLA and C-class, along with the 2, 3, and 4's, which I'm doing as folk seem to shop these cars against each other rather often, BMW is up around 1921 cars for April.

I realize that I'm creating my own class of cars here (which I call "the 5-series is just too big for me" class), but that's me.

Audi, adding the A3, A4, and A5 all together, is down 3022 in April compared to BMW.

Lexus IS and RC, 6220 less than BMW.

Cadillac, I think the ATS is the only model that counts in my made up class of cars, is down 7950 cars. They've sold 3433 less vehicles in my made-up class this YEAR than BMW sold just last month.

One of those BMW's last month was mine. I test drove a bunch of cars over the last year or so before committing to staying with BMW this time. I did not drive the C450, as the two local dealerships I went to didn't seem very interested in earning a sale. The Audi sales folk were great but the S3 I tested wasn't (for many reasons). The 340 won the sale for many, many reasons.

I don't see a lot of doom-and-gloom in these numbers. BMW is down sales in the US, but they have some room before anyone will be crying in the boardroom. Cherry pick one sales stat or the other and it comes off looking worse than it is.

Thank you. Now if only the media had done their research instead of singling out BMW.

[pbjjj]

I thought all X4 are manufactured at BMW's Spartanburg plant in South Carolina?