The year 2024 has not been so simple for German premium automobile brands, all hampered by the drop in sales in the Chinese automobile market which also affected Porsche. For Bmw all the same, the position of “world number one premium brand” is not in question for the year 2024: despite a 2.3% drop in sales mainly due to the decline in the Chinese market, the propeller brand has sold no less than 2,200,177 units worldwide last year (this figure does not include the 244,915 Minis sold over the same period).
This is more than enough for it to remain ahead of Mercedes-Benz, which claims “only” 1,983,400 units distributed worldwide in 2024representing a 3% drop in sales. The brand with the star shows a drop of 7% in sales in the Chinese market but also of 9% in Germany, the two main reasons for its slight decline. At the same time, BMW claims slightly increased sales in Europe (+0.6%) and the United States (+0.2%) in its communicated figures which include the Mini brand for these regions, but also a fall by 10.2% on the Asian market.
Audi far behind
The year 2024 is even less good for Audi, still third German premium brand but a little further away. The brand with the rings indeed announces 1,671,218 cars sold in 2024 worldwidea drop of 11.8% compared to the year 2023. It lost 5.9% in Europe, 21.3% in Germany, 13% in North America and “only” 10.9% in China . These poor results are probably due in part to the timing of the brand, which has just launched its new third-generation Q5 as well as its new A5 and its electric A6. Three models which should allow it to regain momentum in 2025, especially since the new Q3 is also expected.
-Tesla passes Audi!
This relative poor performance by Audi allows Tesla to overtake it for the first time in its history. Also down compared to 2023 (but by only 1%), Elon Musk’s brand claims 1,789,226 new cars distributed in 2024. Not sure, however, that Tesla will catch up with Mercedes and BMW in 2025 despite the arrival of its restyled Model Y, knowing that BMW will for example be able to count on important new features such as the latest X3 and the imminent iX3.
BMW is doing well on electric cars
Note in passing that BMW is doing better than Mercedes and Audi in terms of electric car sales: 368,523 models without thermal engines were sold by the propeller brand in 2024 worldwide compared to 185,100 for Mercedes and 164,000 for Audi. These sales of 100% electric cars represented 16.7% of the global total for BMW, 9.3% for Mercedes and 10% for Audi.
