BMW South Africa (SA) will “any time now” expand its responsibility to sub-Saharan Africa, says BMW sales and marketing board member Dr Ian Robertson. This move will see the company steer all the markets in the Southern African Development Community region, as well as in nine other African countries.
Robertson notes that these markets were previously managed from Munich, in Germany.
He does not believe that there are “huge volume opportunities” in the sub-Saharan Africa region for the German manufacturer in the short term.
Robertson believes the growing business ties between South Africa and the rest of the continent can assist BMW SA’s expansion into Africa. This expansion will include exports from the Rosslyn plant, in Pretoria.
BMW sold 33 400 new BMW and Mini vehicles in Africa in 2015, including South Africa. South African sales were at 24 200 units, and rest-of-Africa sales at 9 200 units. The latter, however, included sales in North, East and West Africa.