Diesel engine portfolio drives BMW sales up 20%

MUMBAI: German luxury carmaker BMW made a strong comeback, posting 20% sales growth in the first nine months of this year, on the back of its sub-2 litre diesel engine portfolio, enabling growth faster than the market.

To sustain the momentum in 2017, BMW plans to assemble petrol engines in India to circumvent any eventualities of the diesel ban being reimposed in the National Capital Region.

ET has learnt that the company is likely to bring in its 2-litre petrol engine portfolio to be assembled locally and it will be made available across eight different models, a rise from the current three models that have a petrol variant.

Speaking on the sidelines of a tie-up event with Ola, Frank Schloeder, acting president, BMW Group India said there was a reason why the company has slowed down the business as it was not sustainable and the company had to take some important decision to bring the business back on track.

“Post correction, we feel we have a very solid foundation to grow our volumes and this year we have already grown our volumes by 20% as against the market which is flat or even falling, this shows that we are aggressive in the market,” said Schloeder.

This growth has been aided by new generation X1which has brought in strong volumes for the company. In future, the focus will be shared across volumes as well image models to get right footprint, said Schloeder.