MINI Has Best Month & Quarter Ever
It was a month of bests for the BMW Group. The group in total sold more cars (far more) than ever before in a calendar month worldwide. That translated into each brand, BMW, MINI and Rolls Royce having their best month of sales ever. But it gets even better if you look at year to date. For 2011, MINI sales are up 23% over 2010. Looking further at the numbers, last month MINI saw a 28.5% increase in sales thank in large part to the new Countryman.
You can read the official release after the break.
Official Release: MINI also reported record figures. At 30,689 units (+28.5%), MINI sales easily exceeded the brand’s previous monthly best from 2008. A total of 60,860 vehicles were sold in the first quarter of 2011. This represents a sales increase of 22.9% compared with the first three months of last year.
The MINI Countryman, introduced last September, contributed to the brand’s positive performance so far this year. With 8,392 vehicles sold, the newest MINI version accounted for more than a quarter of MINI retail in March.
<p><em>For 2011, MINI has sold 8,392 units, representing a 23% growth over 2010 and the best first quarter ever.</em></p>
<p>Um, that doesn’t quite match the chart or press release. It’s 8,392 Countrymen sold in March OR 60,860 cars in Q1 2011 for a 23% growth over Q1 2010.</p>
<p>Depending on how you slice it, this is either good news for the Countryman or not. There are three chassis “flavors” out there: R56ish cars, the Clubman, and the Countryman. Getting 1/4th of sales seems to be pretty much par for the course. It would be nice to see what’s happening to Clubman sale, as that’s where the overlap is. The Countryman is a mix of stolen Clubman sales and new market space for MINI. I wonder wht the internal metric for Countryman sales is for it to be considered a success. I KNOW we’ll just here the marketing spin that things are better than anyone hoped, though….</p>
<p>Matt</p>
<p>thanks for the correction, Gabe.</p>
<p>Gotta say, those numbers are good to hear that MINI is selling more.</p>
<p>Congrats for a great month, MINI!</p>
<p>Like Matt said, I would be interested to see the breakdown by model – and curious to watch those numbers over time to see how the Clubman sells compared to the Countryman. Although the space inside the two cars is really quite similar – the stance and body styles of the two models draw a different kind of MINI driver…</p>
<p>The breakdown by model for the U.S. market has already been published, and it showed that 1,729 Countrymans were sold in March, while Clubman sales dropped year-to-year by 88 vehicles. In other words, lost Clubman sales are accounting for about 5% of all Countryman sales. Even if you make the extremely optimistic assertion that Clubman sales would have otherwise risen the same 35% that the hardtop saw from March to March, lost Clubman sales would still account for less than 23% of all Countryman sales. In other words, somewhere between 77% and 95% of Countryman sales appear to be new customers, not “stolen Clubman sales.”</p>
<p>The Countryman’s U.S. March (1,729 vehicles) beats any month either the Clubman or the Convertible has ever had, is 31% more vehicles than the Clubman and Convertible added together in March, and since the hardtop made up over 50% of U.S. sales that month, the 28% share that the Countryman earned is a very big slice of the remaining pie.</p>
<p>A big success by any reasonable standard.</p>
<p>OK thanks for the extra info, minipuma!</p>
<p>For better or for worse, it looks like the Countryman is here to stay. Got one as a loaner for a few days–AWD S–and I have to admit, I really liked it. I have mixed feelings about the MINI going large–the Countryman, while still fun to drive, is a much, much different animal than the standard MINI. The extra weight, and less tossability is noticeable. But the Countryman is more comfortable–especially the rear seats, and has more utility than the standard MINI. Part of me wishes it was branded as a BMW instead of MINI, but if this is what it takes to keep the MINI brand going, so be it.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the Countryman has brought the MINI brand (sort of anyway) back into rally racing.</p>
<p>One thing that has me scratching my head though was the sticker price on the loaner I had. Sticker on the one I drove (It was loaded, plus an automatic), came in at over 35K (Don’t know if they’re getting discounted at all). I got my brand new MDX, loaded, for 38K, sticker in the low 40’s (that was a year ago). I really like the Countryman, but for and extra 3k, the Acura is a no brainer, when they’re available again.</p>
<p>But the S without AWD, with a stick, that’s more reasonable.</p>
<p>Nice work MINI !</p>
<p>In reading some posts and forum comments, I don;t understand the adversity to the different MINI models we are seeing…..Some years back they had MINI pick up trucks too…. And if technology had permitted it to be done cheaply enough, Alec would have certainly retooled a new factory to make it a bit larger…..</p>