There is a new king in the premium segment, with BMW achieving its best-ever year in 2021. The Bavarian company's sales grew 9.1 percent last year as BMW moved above rival Mercedes for the first time in five years.
Despite having supply bottlenecks and facing issues created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the German manufacturer exceeded expectations, selling a total of 2,213,795 units worldwide. Mercedes came in second place with 2.05 million vehicles sold globally. BMW had a strong final quarter with 510,727 vehicles sold from October to December last year.
Pieter Nota, a member of the Board of Management of BMW AG responsible for Customer, Brands, Sales, was proud of his company's achievement, saying that they "achieved a strong sales performance in 2021, thanks to a powerful operational performance and stellar product lineup."
One of the products that delivered the goods for BMW last year was its electric models. Sales of BMW's electric vehicles rose 70.4 percent year on year, with a total of 328,316 units sold across both the BMW and Mini brands in 2021. Around 13 percent of all Mini and BMW cars sold globally last year were electrified. In Europe alone, those numbers climbed to 23 percent showing the growing demand for electric vehicles in the region.
Ten percent of BMW X3s sold was fully electric while the i3 went up 5.4 percent with 28,216 units delivered. Mini 3-Door Hatch fully electric models sold 24,851 units, a 98.2 percent increase compared to the previous year.
It is not a complete surprise then that BMW wants to further electrify its fleet this year, given its strides in 2021. Nota said, "In 2022, we want to continue our profitable growth, and we will systematically expand our range of fully electric vehicles." He added that they have set themselves particularly ambitious growth targets in this area and aim to more than double their sales of fully electric vehicles from last year.
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The United States remained a major market for BMW, with 336,644 units sold in 2021. Those figures are on par with 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Sixty percent of BMW's sales in the USA last year came courtesy of its X lineup.
BMW's M division also deserves plaudits, with 163,542 vehicles delivered globally last year. That is a 13.4 percent increase compared to 2020, with BMW M vehicles setting an all-time sales record as a result. BMW said that the M3 and the M4 saw significant spikes in demand.
The X5 M and X6 M also made huge gains in 2021, contributing to the M division's big year. BMW expects another big year from the M division in 2022 with the release of the iX M60 and i4 M50.
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