The BMW Group has reached its best sales levels for all three automobile brands with a 9.2 per cent growth last year.

Globally a total of 1,500,678 vehicles were delivered to customers when compared to 1,373,970 in 2006. For the BMW brand, the sales reached 1,276,793 units, outstripping the previous year's level of 1,185,088 with a jump of 7.7 per cent, said a company official.

Mini also recorded a robust rise – in comparison with the previous year of 188,077 units, the brand increased by 18.5 per cent to 222,875 units sold to customers.

“The company witnessed a 25.5 per cent jump in sales of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars in 2007 when compared to 2006, with retails of 1010 cars, taking annual sales into the four-digit range for the first time,” Stefan Krause, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG for Sales and Marketing said.

The company is seeing sales figures zoom for the fourth time in a row thus confirming Rolls-Royce status as the most desirable brand in the super luxury market.

'We have completely reached our sales target for 2007 – growth in the higher single-digit percentage range. Our customers appreciate the fact that, with 'BMW EfficientDynamics', we are already offering a low-consumption, reduced-CO2 package of measures as standard,“ Krause added.

In 2007, the clear front-runner, not only in the BMW model range but also in comparison with its relevant competitors, was the BMW 3 Series, with its saloon, touring, coupé and cabrio versions.

About 37 per cent of the BMW Group's total sales came from this model series, which increased again by 9.2 per cent to reach 555,219 units. The BMW 5 Series, which comes in second place in terms of volume with 230,845 automobiles sold. Third place is taken by the BMW 1 Series, with 165,803 cars.-TradeArabia News Service