Spartanburg-made X3 leads the way for increased BMW sales
The Spartanburg-born BMW X3 Sports Activity Vehicle helped lead the Germany-based automaker’s U.S. sales to a 5.8 percent increase in January.
BMW of North America LLC announced Wednesday the company sold 19,739 vehicles last month, compared to 18,656 vehicles during the same month last year.
X3 sales increased almost 57 percent to 1,687 units in January, compared to 1,075 units a year prior.
“The January results are the springboard for a year that will be full of new model launches beginning with the arrival of the sixth generation 3 Series in mid-February,” said BMW of North America President and CEO Ludwig Willisch in a statement. “Nationwide, inventories are low after the extraordinary sales in December, and we’re replenishing our dealers as fast as we can to meet the strong demand for our vehicles.”
The two other models produced in Spartanburg — the X5 and X6 — had a rough start to the year.
BMW said it sold 2,610 X5’s in January, a 14 percent decrease compared to the 3,038 units sold during the same month of 2011.
X6 sales fell 21 percent to 282 units last month, compared to 357 units sold in January of last year.
The company announced in January that it would invest $900 million and hire 1,000 employees at its Spartanburg plant over the next three years to add the new X4 and ramp up total production to 350,000 vehicles per year. The facility, which employs about 7,000, will hire 300 workers this year and up its output to 300,000 vehicles.
As a whole, the SAV division saw a more than 2 percent increase in sales last month to 4,579 vehicles, compared to 4,470 vehicles during January 2011. Sales of BMW brand vehicles ticked up more than 3 percent during the month to 16,405 vehicles, compared to 15,905 vehicles a year earlier.
Its MINI brand sold 3,334 vehicles in January, a more than 21 percent jump from the same month last year when it sold 2,751 vehicles.
Posted:
February 04, 2012 by
Katie Guess | with
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