BMW M sales expected to have another record year

10th November 2017

By: Irma Venter

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

Font size: - +

BMW M sales should reach another record this year, says BMW M sales and marketing VP Peter Quintus.

He says the German carmaker’s performance brand sold 67 900 units last year, up 9% on 2015 numbers. Sales last year comprised 37 500 M automotives and 30 400 M performance automotives.

By the end of September, M sales had already reached more than 60 000 units.

Quintus says South Africa is, on average, the number nine M market globally, with about 5% of all BMW sales in the country being M brand sales. “Normally, M sales make up 2% of all BMW sales.”

Around 1 000 M cars are sold in South Africa a year.

“In the three years I have been here, I have seen incredible passion for the M brand,” adds BMW Group South Africa (BMW SA) and sub-Saharan Africa CEO Tim Abbott. In terms of its share of BMW sales, BMW SA was the fifth-largest three years ago.

“Last year, we were third,” says Abbott.

Three years ago, BMW SA had 12 M dealers, growing to 45 today.

“Zambezi (Pretoria) is the second-largest M showroom anywhere in the world,” says Abbott.

Quintus says the US is the number one M market, at around 15 000 sales a year, with the UK at number two and Germany at number three.

While China is a big market for BMW, the Asian country is not yet that passionate about performance cars, says Quintus.

“China has no race car history, so volumes are low. But the segment is developing.”

China sells around 2 000 M cars a year.

Quintus ascribes the rise of the M brand to its racing history and the fact that it “does not compromise on race track capability”.

“We are racers. We were founded in 1972 to compete in the touring car championship. We were not founded to build cars. Today, we are still racers. The cars we build are very agile, very precise, and we always have racing in mind.”

The BMW M4 CS
The new BMW M4 CS, launched in South Africa in October, is a limited-run special-edition model.

The BMW M4 CS fills the gap in the line-up between the M4 Coupe with Competition Package and the track-focused BMW M4 GTS.

The M4 CS also sees BMW M introduce a new nomenclature for its models.

Positioned above the standard M models will be the performance-boosted Competition versions. Then comes the CS special-edition model, a notch higher still.

Positioned at the top is the performance-maximising brand shaper that displays a clear motor sport or club sport character, but is also fully road legal.

The three-litre high-performance engine raises the output of the M4 CS with Competition Package by 10 hp to 460 hp (338 kW).

Twin Powerturbo technology allows the M4 CS to dip below the four-second mark for the 0 to 100 km/h sprint, stopping the clock at 3.9 seconds.

The top speed of the M4 CS is electronically limited to 280 km/h.

The BMW M4 CS is priced at R1.83-million.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION