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Investing.com -- BMW Group (ETR:BMWG) held global vehicle sales largely steady in the first quarter of 2025, overcoming a steep drop in China with strong electric vehicle growth in Europe and the United States, sending its shares up by over 5% on Thursday.
The German automaker delivered 586,149 vehicles worldwide between January and March, a 1.4% decline from the same period a year earlier.
The slowdown was led by a sharp 17.2% drop in deliveries to China, the group’s largest single market, where sales fell to 155,195 units. Sales across Asia as a whole declined 12.2%.
Outside of China, BMW Group reported solid performance. Deliveries in Europe rose 6.2% to 241,867 vehicles, with a particularly strong showing in battery-electric sales.
In the United States, sales climbed 4.1% to 94,591 units. Total (EPA:TTEF) deliveries across the Americas rose 5.4%. Germany, the company’s home market, posted a slight 1.3% decline to 61,264 vehicles based on provisional registration data.
BMW’s core brand delivered 520,142 vehicles in the first quarter, a 2% decrease year-over-year. Despite the decline, the company reported growth in its high-performance segment.
BMW M GmbH increased sales by 5% to 50,494 units, driven by sustained demand for the M5 sedan and M3 sports car.
The MINI brand posted a 4.1% increase in global deliveries, reaching 64,626 units. Fully-electric models played a central role in MINI’s performance, making up 35.3% of total sales in the quarter.
In China, more than half of all MINIs sold were battery-electric vehicles, while in Europe, one in three MINI buyers opted for a fully-electric version.
Rolls-Royce (OTC:RYCEY) sales fell 9.4% year-over-year to 1,381 vehicles in the quarter. BMW Motorrad, which includes the group’s motorcycle and scooter business, recorded a 3.9% decline to 44,609 units.
Electrified vehicle sales — including battery-electric and plug-in hybrid models — rose 28.5% to 157,495 units.
Battery-electric vehicle (BEV) deliveries alone jumped 32.4% to 109,516 units across the BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce brands. Europe was the fastest-growing region for fully-electric models, with BEV sales rising 64.2%.
Jochen Goller, BMW AG board member for customer, brands and sales, said the group is seeing continued demand for electric vehicles and all drivetrain types.
“Our products are winning over customers worldwide across all drive technologies, with positive momentum driven, in particular, by the new MINI models – especially the fully-electric variants,” Goller said in a statement.
BMW said it expects to hit two major electrification milestones by the end of 2025: reaching three million electrified vehicles on the road globally since the debut of the BMW i3 and i8, and delivering 1.5 million fully-electric models.