In a major development, BMW announced on Wednesday that it has more than doubled its global sales of battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) year-on-year in the first two months of 2023. This growth has been attributed to the “disproportionately strong” growth in China, the German carmaker’s largest single market.
The BMW Group further revealed that it had more than tripled BEV sales year-on-year in China, a country where one in three cars sold by BMW last year. The company’s spokesperson emphasized the importance of China’s market to BMW, particularly when it comes to electric vehicles. He added that BMW expects China’s share of total BEV sales to “continue to rise significantly” in 2023.
To further strengthen its long-term collaboration with Brilliance China Automotive Holdings Ltd, BMW fully consolidated its joint Chinese venture BMW Brilliance Automobile (BBA) in 2022. This move helped push up group earnings before tax to a record 23.5 billion euros ($24.9 billion), up 46.4 percent year-on-year.
BMW has big plans for China and is looking to expand its production capacity in Shenyang while “systematically increasing” local productions. The carmaker has also launched a customized longer all-electric 3 Series model exclusively to the Chinese market last year and plans to introduce a longer all-electric version of the BMW iX1 in China this year.
Furthermore, BMW is expecting the share of all-electric vehicles in its total global sales to rise from 9 percent last year to 15 percent in 2023. The CEO of BMW AG, Oliver Zipse, said demand for all-electric vehicles remains strong and added that “with this momentum, more than half the vehicles we sell worldwide will be all-electric before 2030.”
BMW’s success in the Chinese market is a significant milestone for the company, and it looks like China will continue to play a crucial role in BMW’s electric vehicle strategy going forward.
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