BMW records best ever quarterly sales with 18% rise

Powered by robust sales of BMW 5 Series, X5 and X6 models, the company sold a total of 7,460 BMW and MINI vehicles in 12 Middle East markets during the first three months of the year resulting in an 18 per cent increase compared to the first quarter in 2013.
The UAE remained the largest market, accounting for around half of BMW Group Middle East’s total sales.
Abu Dhabi remained the biggest selling market with 2,672 cars sold, a 40 per cent sales increase followed by Dubai, Sharjah and the Northern Emirates with 1,392 cars sold, a six per cent sales growth.
Other markets that showed sales increases included: Oman with sales increasing 33 per cent (281 cars sold), Saudi Arabia 29 per cent sales growth (1,139 cars) and Qatar by 20 per cent (435 cars). Alexander Eftimov, director of sales and marketing for BMW Group Middle East said: “Achieving our best-ever month in March and best-ever first quarter is an outstanding result."
He said: "A major contributor has been our attractive and young model range, and our aim is to continue the momentum with additional new model launches this year, such as the BMW M3 Sedan, M4 Coupé and all-new BMW X4 and BMW i8 sports car to name a few."
The director said: "We have the right products with many of them being leaders in their respective categories and strong business partners therefore we are confident that we will achieve great success throughout 2014."
The BMW 5 Series was the best-selling model with 1,790 cars sold, followed by the BMW X6 Sports Activity Coupé (1,089 cars) followed by sales of the X5 Sports Activity Vehicle (1,074 cars).
The company’s flagship BMW 7 Series also continued its success with almost a thousand cars sold during the first quarter.