Despite the late year sales surge by Mercedes Benz to grab the no.1 US luxury sales market spot from Lexus, BMW has managed to fend off its German rival from taking the title.
Brief: BMW overtakes Lexus as top US luxury brand after the Japanese’ brands 11-year reign atop. The drop in sales were blamed on disruption of production due to Japan earthquake.
BMW grabs top US luxury brand spot, overtakes Mercedes Benz and Lexus
BMW confirmed today that U.S. sales rose 15 percent to 26,834 in December, for an annual total of 247,907. Mercedes was mentioned as saying its sales last month climbed 28 percent to 25,701, pushing its total for 2011 to 245,192.
Both German car brand officially ended Lexus’ 11-year reign as the top US luxury car brand. The drop was blamed on the March earthquake in Japan which halted production of Toyota Motor Corp’s luxury brand. Lexus ended 2011 with a 13 percent drop down to 198,552.
Following Lexus was Cadillac at 152,389; Acura at 123,299; Audi at 117,561; Infiniti at 98,461, and Lincoln at 85,643.
