If your car needs to make room for more people like your family, you need to have enough seating to carry more passengers. BMW is forecasting that its passenger car sales will grow following the increasing demand for those who need to bring along more people on their travels.
Ian Robertson, the Sales Chief of BMW, said that the global car sales for the company will likely increase by 3-4% for the year 2014 on an interview with Reuters this Thursday. He also said that the sales growth of the luxury auto maker won’t be that stable in Europe this year and it will take at least three years, could be longer, before the markets can get over the pre-crisis levels.
Sales growth in China is slower this year because of a slowdown in the country’s economic growth and the increasing competition in one of their most profitable markets. Last year, BMW’s sales in China actually went up to 40% last year, which means more or less 326,000 vehicles sold. Ian Robertson in the auto shows in Paris that he’s not expecting for the growth rates in China to be as high as the previous year though.
The comments on the BMW’s official suggested that the luxury car market in China could slow down even more than forecasted just as more car makers push for a higher sales growth.
BMW is overall positive still that there will be a growth of around 3-4 person on its passenger car sales considering markets other than China and Europe.
Robertson also said the BMW will have more production of its i8 plug-in hybrid sports car because all of them have been sold out. The company is encouraged to produce more of its passenger cars because the orders have been piling up already. The i8 sports cars by the way have the same production line with the predecessor i3 electric car which has had lots of sales in the U.S. markets.