Although BMW didn’t set a new sales record in 2024, its archrivals fell even harder in the last 12 months. That allowed the Bavarian marque to remain the most popular automaker among luxury brands. The Munich-based marque shipped 2,200,177 vehicles, a decrease of 2.3% over the previous year. Mercedes had to settle for second place with 1,983,400 units, or 3% less than in 2023. Audi completed the podium with 1,671,218 cars, plummeting by 11.8% compared to the year before.
BMW initially projected to finish the year with slightly more deliveries than in 2023, when sales hit an all-time high. However, it had to delay the deliveries of an unspecified number of vehicles affected by a faulty integrated braking system (IBS). The issue impacts more than 1.5 million cars, including vehicles already shipped to their rightful owners, for which the company must take “technical actions.”
It’s worth noting the numbers posted by BMW are provisional and could change later this year when the BMW Group Report 2024 comes out. However, they’re unlikely to vary significantly. It’s hard to imagine Mercedes can close the gap, let alone grab the number one spot from BMW. To make the comparison fair, we didn’t include the vehicles delivered by MINI, which fell 17.1% to 244,915 units. We also left out the 5,712 cars sold by Rolls-Royce in 2024 when shipments dropped by 5.3%. Similarly, we didn’t include the sales recorded by Mercedes-Benz Vans.
At the end of the day, being number one in the luxury race is just for bragging rights. That said, we reckon automakers in this segment probably envy BMW for being the undisputed leader again. The company’s decision to offer a rich mix of powertrains is paying off. Even though it’s not going all in on EVs, deliveries of zero-emission models increased by 11.6% in 2024. 368,523 cars sold last year didn’t have a combustion engine. Doing the math, electric vehicles accounted for 16.75% of all BMW shipments last year.
