BMW Going on the Offensive

In late 2002, BMW announced that car sales had increased to 805,800 units (for the first nine months of 2002) from 671,850 units in the corresponding period the previous year. This reflected a 20% increase in sales. By September 2002, the MINI (launched in 2001) had already crossed its target of 100,000 units (104,900 units) for fiscal 2002. Over 26,800 MINIs were sold in the UK, while 17,250, 15,760 and 12,860 were sold in Germany, the US and Italy respectively. BMW also registered high growth rates worldwide on its new BMW models launched during the early 2000s. In the UK, BMW and MINI vehicles recorded a 48% increase in sales for the first nine months of 2002, as compared to the same period in 2001...

Some of the new products and revised versions due for launch in 2003 were a new BMW 6 Series, New BMW X3, a diesel version of MINI, MINI One D and revised versions of the BMW 3 Series and the BMW 5 Series. During the same period, the company also got the rights to the famous car brand Rolls Royce. These rights were transferred from one of its rivals, the German automobile major Volkswagen, as per an agreement made in 1998 (between BMW, Volkswagen and Rolls Royce Plc.), when Volkswagen had acquired the automobile business of Rolls Royce. BMW announced that it would launch new Rolls Royce cars as well in mid-2003. BMW sources expected the new models to significantly increase sales volumes in 2003...