BMW's car sales up 8.6% in Q3

BMW's third-quarter (Q3) sales rose by 8.6 percent year-on-year to 675,680 delivered vehicles, the German carmaker announced on Wednesday, reported Xinhua.

"Thanks to our strong model line-up, we were able to increase our third-quarter sales year-on-year, despite the lasting effects of the coronavirus pandemic," said Pieter Nota, member of the Board of Management of BMW responsible for customer, brands and sales, in a statement.

Over the period from January to September, car sales of BMW still "reflected the global impact of the coronavirus pandemic" as expected, declining by 12.5 percent to around 1.64 million vehicles, the company announced.

In Q3, BMW's sales figures grew in all markets again. In China, BMW's largest single market, sales even grew by almost a third year-on-year to 230,612 delivered vehicles after an already "encouraging second quarter."

China was BMW's only major market worldwide with sales growth in the first nine months of the year.

In Germany, year-on-year sales were up by 12.1 percent in Q3 but still down by 16 percent over the first three quarters, according to the Munich-based carmaker.

Since the beginning of the year, BMW increasingly focused on developing electrified vehicles. Last month, the carmaker announced that its plant in the German city of Leipzig would become a new production site for batteries. Last week, the first fully-electric BMW iX3 model left the production line in Shenyang, northeast China.

"We are especially pleased with the sales growth of almost 50 percent in electrified vehicles. This makes electromobility a substantial growth driver," said Nota.