[Otto]

The race for the highest volume of luxury car sales is a tight one. Mercedes posted its best month of sales in its entire history. Audi also broke its previous monthly sales record, and BMW out sold both of its main competitors despite their record breaking sales figures.

BMW sold 212,908 units. That is 42,458 more than Audi and 54,385 more than Mercedes-Benz. That brings overall sales for the first quarter of the year to 487,024 units sold for BMW, 412,850 for Audi, and 374,276 for Mercedes-Benz.

It's a bit early to take bets, but do you guys have a prediction for which company will take home the luxury sales crown this year? My money is on BMW.

http://www.autoevolution.com/news/b...ith-record-breaking-sales-in-march-79753.html

 

[Quatto]

BMW seems to be the volume king, a lot of people want a Mercedes or Audi, but a lot of people get BMW's seems like most believe BMW's are the way to go. But I'm biased, I just love audi.

 

[audifanatic]

seems like mercedes has some really LOW lows.

throw lexus in there and show them up.

i know lexus does very well compared to the germans

 

[Quatto]

Yup, Lexus does very well with sales. As good as their sales are the cars can be dull at times. I just rather stick with Audi for now till Lexus have some of their cars im interested in at their peak

 

[Otto]

I know that Mercedes Benz is doing well with sales, but they just don't make the same margin of profit as Audi and BMW do. Simply selling more cars isn't really winning, since its ultimately about how much money the automaker is making.

 

[audifanatic]

tight race

 

[Quatto]

I know that Mercedes Benz is doing well with sales, but they just don't make the same margin of profit as Audi and BMW do. Simply selling more cars isn't really winning, since its ultimately about how much money the automaker is making.

I wonder where porsche's profit margin sits among those, i know porsche has a great profit margin

 

[audifanatic]

porsches profit margin smokes everyone in the industry

 

[Uniqu3]

The new A3 is going to help Audi climb.

http://www.autonews.com/article/20140501/RETAIL01/140509983

Audi of America sold 2,159 units of the new A3 sedan in April, propelling Audi to a 19 percent U.S. sales increase as sister brand Volkswagen continued to struggle.

Audi sold 15,653 vehicles in April -- its 40th straight record month. Groupwide sales were flat for the month, though, held back by an 8 percent sales decrease turned in by mass-market VW, for its 13th straight monthly decline.

Executives at Audi are banking on the A3 to compete with compact luxury cars such as the Mercedes-Benz CLA and recruit new customers. The sales results for the A3 were strong enough to make it Audi’s third-best-selling model in April, after the Q5 crossover and the A4 sedan, which both posted modest sales gains over last April.

For comparison, Mercedes-Benz sold roughly 4,000 units of the CLA per month after its launch last fall, peaking at 4,895 units in October.

Audi got the word out on the new A3 by holding events nationwide on April 3. Of the 270 Audi dealerships in the United States, about 250 held events.

Audi of America held bicoastal parties of its own, with the Grammy-nominated soul singer Janelle Monae performing live at an event in Los Angeles next to a hologram of the rapper M.I.A., who performed at Audi’s party in New York.

The parties “achieved what we wanted to do,” Audi of America President Scott Keogh said in an interview at the New York auto show, “which was to get back to the nostalgia days in the ’50s and ’60s when you had a moment in time and the car was launched.”

For the VW brand, sales of the best-selling Jetta sedan (down 2 percent) and Passat sedan (up 3 percent) held steady, but an aging lineup and a dearth of fresh products led to another disappointing month.

The company hopes an overhaul of the Golf line, which will now be imported to the United States from Mexico rather than Germany, will help. The redesigned GTI will go on sale in early June, followed by the Golf in August and the Golf SportWagen this fall.

This week VW also launched a redesign of its Web site, VW.com, to move more metal.

In a move inspired by online dating sites, each of the 80,000 cars available at VW dealerships has a unique profile page with its VIN and location.

 

[Quatto]

And BMW also has a rival for it, the 2 series gran coupe.
Once all 3 are out the comparison for those 2 along with a 3rd, the CLA, will be a must watch for anyone planning to get one.

 

[audifanatic]

interesting how they have always sort of been close to each other

seems like car buying trends is still the most dominant in number of cars sold across the industry

 

[Quatto]

interesting how they have always sort of been close to each other

seems like car buying trends is still the most dominant in number of cars sold across the industry

Sure does seem like that.

 

[audifanatic]

cant beat the economy

 

[Quatto]

That is one of the bigger buying factors, fueling up can get expensive, best to go with what works for you.

 

[audifanatic]

gas aint getting any cheaper!

 

[Quatto]

Sadly and if it does it's just a tease, soon after it goes higher than it did before.

 

[audifanatic]

i havent seen it REALLY go down for 5 years now.

 

[Otto]

The new A3 is going to help Audi climb.

http://www.autonews.com/article/20140501/RETAIL01/140509983

Audi doesn't just have to climb though. It has to climb faster than than its competitors because they are coming out with new vehicles all the time as well. Audi sales will go up but they have to go up at a higher rate than BMW to start gaining ground.

 

[audifanatic]

BMW led very strong in 2012.