MINI sales continue to be determined by the limited supply. Because of the rebuilding measures required to expand annual capacity to around 240,000 units in the medium term, as already communicated, production in the Oxford plant in the UK was interrupted between the middle of December 2005 and the middle of January 2006.
The MINI product mix continues to be of a very high quality: In the three months to the end of March, the basic model, the MINI One, was chosen by 15,147 customers (30%), and 20,155 (41%) went for the MINI Cooper. Almost one in three buyers (14,217/29%) chose the top-of-the-range model, the MINI Cooper S. This means that the average selling price for a MINI has risen further to now over € 21,000.
Because of the delivery bottlenecks caused by the interrupted production in the MINI plant, sales still fell slightly in March 2006 by 1.7% to 21,760 automobiles (previous year: 22,133). For the year to March 2006, 49,519 MINI were delivered to customers (previous year: 52,698/-6.0%).
Double Post!
Wow, a parallel universe.
I’m skeptical on reported cause (production bottlenecks) & effect (lower sales) here. My MCS was exactly 2 weeks from order (3/18) to awaiting transport, and the dealerships in my region had healthy inventories.
Guys, you don’t get it, that’s just MINI’s way of saying that it was 3.4% down not 1.7%. If you post it twice, you can cut the number in half as well. 😉
I wonder how the release of the new GTI is related? VW sold a record number of GTI’s and cars in general in March.
Well, considering that the formally impressive MINI ads and billboards are now touting the GTI, it’s understandable. That lady has some great ideas.
I know locally, Cincinnati MINI has had a surplus of vehicles for a few weeks now. At one point I drove past and they had at least 20 cars without “sold” signs in them, and I’ve gotten a few emails marketing emails from them with similar info…
Cars on the ground and order time – as most of you know – depends a lot on where you are. I live in CA, and just got my MCS yesterday after a 14 week wait. And the dealers in the Bay Area have very few cars on the ground. In fact, 2 of the 4 have none.
Two people offered to pay more than MSRP for mine while the MA was showing me the car and how everything works.
Senergy, where are you in Seattle there is a 12 month wait for an S and in Oregon a 8 month wait, I checked yesterday.
That should read ” Senergy, where are you? In Seattle…”
Wow, I had no idea. I’m in the Philly area, but am a huge fan of the West Coast from the Bay Area up to the San Juan Islands. I guess with MINI distribution, I have something to be thankful for.