Electric cars have led the charge for BMW in July to go ahead of arch-rival and unchallenged market leader Mercedes-Benz in monthly retail number for the first time in several years.
BMW clocked 1,097 units in registrations during July, a year-on-year (y-o-y) growth of 18%, against 1,019 units sales clocked by Mercedes-Benz, a decline of 4.5% y-o-y.
This retail data is sourced by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Association (FADA) from the ministry of road transport and highways comes from 94% of India’s RTOs.
Much of BMW’s July growth came from its electric vehicle portfolio, which ballooned more than 18 times to close with 92 units in sales volumes. The German carmaker has the widest range of EVs in India in the luxury segment with an average price of more than Rs 1 crore.
Mercedes-Benz, which has the highest number of dealerships in the luxury segment, saw 34 EV sales in July. Swedish car brand Volvo had in June overtaken Mercedes in retail EV volume ranking to climb to the second spot.
The upset by BMW is, however, limited only to July as Mercedes stood as the market leader in the January-June period for the year. Its volumes grew 13% y-o-y to 8,528 units while that of BMW grew 5.5% y-o-y to 5,476 units.
“We don’t comment on these (July) numbers since it doesn’t capture the complete retail landscape, varying significantly from actual retail sales,” a Mercedes-Benz India spokesperson said.
The electric vehicle penetration in the luxury segment is higher than the mass market segment. While the mass market, dominated by those priced below Rs 10 lakh, saw a penetration of under 2%, the penetration in the luxury car segment is at nearly 7%.
From little under 8% penetration, BMW will take up the EV share to 15% of its total sales in India by the end of this year. The 19 new launches that it has for the year includes EVs as well. In comparison, Mercedes is launching four new EVs in 8-16 months from its global portfolio with an aim to have 25% of its sales from EVs by 2027.
Demand for luxury cars in India has not only gone past the pre-Covid-19 levels, it is expected to close at an all-time high level this year at around 47,000 units. The waiting period on several models, especially luxury SUVs is between 6-10 months while some of the models are a sell-out for the year.
