Worldwide MINI Sales Up 4% for 2008
MINI Release: The MINI brand made further sales gains in 2008 to achieve a new all-time high. With a total of 232,425 deliveries it grew 4.3% over the previous year. In December the brand reported sales down 27.8% to 15,010 (prev.yr.: 20,800) vehicles. A temporary interruption in the MINI model programme also contributed to this relatively substantial decrease. The MINI Convertible ceased production back in August 2008 – with the new MINI Convertible not scheduled for market launch until late March 2009.
The MINI brand can also look back on a successful year in the United States. In fact, 2008 was the brand’s best year since the premium small car was launched on the U.S. market in 2002 (54,077 vehicles sold/ +28.6%). For the very first time, the U.S. became the largest single market for MINI.
first post!
i refuse to sip the kool aid.
Whatever that means…
In Finland, MINI sales grew 127.9% thanks to CO2-based taxes introduced in the beginning of 2008. At the same time BMW got an increase of about 77%, whereas overall sales grew only 11%. I guess we can thank Efficient Dynamics for that!
Wow, Petkintera! That’s great to hear!! MINI in Canada had a fantastic year too and our dealership had one of best months in a long time in December!! Totally unexpected seeing as the market for cars usually slows around Christmas. Proof that the MINI brand is strong and will keep on pushing into 2009 🙂
Brand sales were down 27.8% in December. That means the overall annual increase of 4% was based upon strong sales in the earlier months of 2008.
It really doesn’t matter what the 4% increase stemmed from – Being on the plus side is huge for any auto manufacturer in this market where most are posting record losses. Congrats to MINI!!
Some things to keep in mind…..
It’s good to have grown in the last year for sure….
Dec was down. Wonder how the trends will work out in the next couple of months.
Annual US sales is just over 5x the total number of Pontiac G6s sold in the US in Sept.
Matt
So are we saying that more MINIs were sold in the USA than in the UK? Amazing result! How soon before BMW decide to start building them in the States, I wonder?
And where can the brand go from here?
I was actually surprised that they’re gonna build the soft-roader in Austria. Seems the buying demographics would have favored Spartenberg while shielding them (a bit) from currency fluctuation….
The US is a huge friggin car market. Even in this past “down” year light vehicles were 13 million plus units….
Matt
maybe they kept the cross in Austria because it left them open to move production of the coupe/clubman/vert to US – higher volume than the cross, more benefit for all the same reasons.
I think that they left in Austria because of pre-existing relationships with Magna-Styer (or however it’s spelled). With all the talk of technology sharing between the softroader and the X1, it would make sense for them to share a production line. The FWD platform under the current Mini isn’t shared with any other BMW platform, so it would be harder to gain synergistic benefits.
Matt
Magna Styr builds vehicles under contract. They are not a car company, simply, a consulting operation that “frees” up manufacturing overhead/capacity and puts together the car you designed for you.
The currently build the BMW X3 and soon will do the MINI R60 and the BMW X1. In the past Magna has done work for Chrysler. The vast majority of PT Cruisers for the European market were assembled at Magna Styr.
It is an interesting business model and seems to generate good results.
Without Magna Styr MINI would have had to either further expand capacity in Oxford, or build the car in the United States or even South Africa at the BMW Rosslyn plant.