BMW group annual sales fall on weak demand in China, Germany

By Victoria Waldersee

BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany's top-end carmakers took a battering at home and in China in 2024, sales volume data showed, as wealthier consumers held back on purchases amid an uncertain economy and on slower than expected electric vehicle sales.

BMW on Monday reported a 2.3% drop in overall vehicle sales at its BMW brand, compared to a 3% drop at Mercedes-Benz Cars and Porsche, and a 12% drop at Volkswagen's Audi.

In China and Germany, however, BMW saw falls of 13.4% and 5.3%, respectively, while Mercedes' sales were off by 7% and 9%. Audi's sales fell by 11% in China and by 21% in Germany.

China's domestic market, the world's largest, maintained steady growth in 2024, but foreign carmakers with less competitive EV line-ups lost ground to Chinese EV-only rivals as a price war and subsidised trade-ins for greener vehicles drove demand.

In Germany, car demand remains well below pre-pandemic levels, with around 2.8 million cars sold last year - around 1% less than 2023 and a quarter below 2019 sales.

Battery-electric sales in the country are down by a quarter from 2023, according to German motor authority data, while hybrid sales rose 12% to around 950,000.

BMW's electric-only sales globally bucked the trend, rising 13.5% to around 430,000 while Mercedes-Benz's battery-electric sales fell by 23%.

One bright spot for Mercedes was a jump of 34% in its top-end vehicle sales in the fourth quarter, propped up by solid U.S. demand, a sign that dealers may be stocking up inventory ahead of Donald Trump imposing higher tariffs on European-made cars.

(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee and Andrey Sychev, editing by Friederike Heine, Ludwig Burger and Jason Neely)