Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/245323
VOL. 51 ISSUE 3 JANUARY 21, 2014 B P35 SALES RECORDS FOR BMW MW Motorrad achieved record BMW achieved record annual sales for the third annual sales for the year in a row in 2013. third year in succession in 2013, when the German manufacturer delivered 115,215 motorcycles and maxiscooters - an increase of 8.3 percent over the previous record-setting year when it shipped 106,358 units. But it still wasn't enough to allow the German manufacture to ing its leadership in the 500ccrecapture the crown of Europe's plus sector, with a 25.5 percent number one, which it lost for the market share. The U.S. was second year in a row to KTM in BMW's second largest-selling terms of units sold. market, with the 14,100 motor"Due to the high level of pop- cycles sold in 2013 representing ularity of our motorcycles and a 16.9 percent increase over the maxi-scooters we have been 12,057 units delivered in 2012. able to achieve growth in all France and Italy came next in sales regions," said Stephan terms of overall sales, each with Schaller, president of BMW Mo- over 10,000 units, followed by torrad. "This demonstrates that Brazil – a surprise, although our product offensive has put BMW now has its own assembly us on the right course. Despite operation in this fastest-growing the difficult market environment developing market - with the that persists in Europe, we once UK sixth largest overall. There, again asserted and further ex- BMW achieved growth of almost tended our market leadership in 15 percent compared to 2012, the relevant capacity segment moving up from third to second over 500cc, and in the crisis-rid- overall in the British market, with den markets of Italy and Spain, a share of 15.8 percent of the we were able to achieve growth 500cc-plus market sector. for the first time in years, deBMW's best-selling model spite the fact that the market as in 2013 with almost 30,000 a whole was heavily in decline in vehicles sold was once again those countries." the R1200GS, with more than In its German home market, 25,000 units accounted for by BMW sales were up 4.7 percent the new water-cooled version at 21,473 units, further increas- launched at the start of 2013 - a record for a new BMW model in its debut year. The rest was accounted for by holdover supplies of the outgoing air/ oil-cooled version. In second place came its kid sister, the F800GS with 10,166 units sold, and the essentially similar F700GS in third, of which 7155 examples were delivered. Sales of the S1000RR and HP4 sportbikes were also strong, with just under 6800 and almost 2700 examples of these closely related models sold, respectively. However, although full-year BMW Group sales, also including the MINI brand, Rolls-Royce and BMW motorcycles, rose 6.4 percent to a combined 1,963,798 million units in 2013, especially due to increased demand from China and the U.S, it wasn't quite such a rosy picture for BMW AG's core automotive sector, which posted the smallest gain in December sales of Germany's top three premiumcar brands as the battle with Audi and Mercedes-Benz for luxury automobile sales supremacy continues to heat up. Deliveries for the Bavarian manufacturer - which is currently Germany's luxury car champion brand - rose 2.3% last month to 155,835 BMW-branded cars (so, excluding MINI and RollsRoyce), a figure dwarfed by an continued on page 36