Automotive News Europe - February 2013 - 7

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS EUROPE

AUTOMAKERS

Germans A-OK in the USA
Audi, BMW, Mercedes and VW hope market will help offset European woes
LUCA CIFERRI

lciferri@crain.com

DETROIT – German automakers expect
to partially offset Europe’s sales slump
with another year of double-digit volume
gains in the hot U.S. market.
“We expect to grow by about 10 percent this year,” Mercedes-Benz USA
CEO Steve Cannon told Automotive
News Europe.
BMW North America CEO Ludwig Willisch also is bullish about his brand’s
future. “We expected another two-digit
growth this year,” Willisch told Automotive News Europe.
Combined 2012 U.S. sales at BMW
Group, Daimler AG and Volkswagen
Group rose 21 percent to nearly 1.25
million vehicles. Five of the automakers’ brand set new U.S. sales records
in 2012 (see table), and a number
of those records are at risk of being
topped this year.
Pent-up demand will drive overall U.S.
light-vehicle sales to 16 million units
this year, from 2012’s 14.5 million,
Morgan Stanley Managing Director
Adam Jonas told the Automotive News
World Congress last month. If Jonas is
correct, it would be the fourth consecutive year of growth for the U.S. market.
Meanwhile, his company sees western
European sales declining for a sixth
straight year. The 2013 decrease is forecast to be 4 percent to 12.7 million light
vehicles from 13.2 million in 2012.
The good news for German automakers
is that consumers’ appetite for their
cars is growing faster than the overall
U.S. market, which increased 13 percent in 2012. Last year, only MercedesBenz brand grew on par with the market
average while Audi, BMW and Mini and
VW brand did much better.
Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche told reporters at the Detroit auto show last month
that the United States and China would
be bright spots for his company in 2013
compared with Europe. “When I hear

FEBRUARY 2013

With 117,023 units sold, the VW
Passat was the best-selling German
model in the United States last year.
bad news from the Old World, luckily I
can call Steve Cannon to hear our U.S.
sales figures,” he said.
If Cannon’s sales growth prediction
is correct, the U.S. volume for the
Mercedes and Smart brands could top
300,000 this year. Mercedes is counting
on the CLA, a four-door coupe-styled
compact that goes on sale in September, to attract younger buyers to the
brand. Mercedes’ average U.S. buyer
is 51 years old, Cannon said. Mercedes
introduced the CLA to the U.S. market
via a 60-second TV ad that debuted
during the fourth quarter of the Super
Bowl yesterday (Feb. 3). The Super Bowl
spot is expected to reach more than
110 million people, said Bernie Glaser,
Mercedes-Benz USA marketing boss.
Mercedes, BMW, Audi and others
are going after the 75 million 30- to
40-year-olds who are forcing “the biggest changes the automotive industry
will face,” Glaser said. “They have big
expectations for products and brands.”
Those buyers cannot and will not pay
the $40,000-plus sticker prices some
of their status-conscious baby boomer
parents can afford, industry researchers
say. Yet they demand “attractive highly
styled cars and the right technology,”
Glaser said.
BMW, which was the best-selling luxury
brand in the U.S. in 2012 and 2011,
sees growth coming from its new 3-series range and the face-lifted 7 series.
BMW’s Mini brand aims to top its record
U.S. sales in 2012 with help from new
products such as the Paceman cross-

BMW brand
Mini
Rolls-Royce
BMW Group total

281,460
66,123
384
347,967

14
15
6
14

Maybach
Mercedes-Benz (*)
Smart
Daimer AG total

50
274,089
10,009
284,143

28
13
92
13

Audi
Bentley
Lamborghini
Porsche
VW brand
VW Group total

139,310
2,315
480
35,043
438,133
615,281

19
23
41
21
35
30

........................................................................................................................

Total German
Total U.S. car

1,247,391
14,492,398

21
13

(*) excludes Sprinter LCV
Red denotes new record for full-year sales

over. Mini also plan to add 10 to 15
dealers to a U.S. network of 150 stores.
VW Group also plans to stay on the
growth path. Luxury unit Audi’s U.S.
dealer council expects sales this year
to grow by another 20,000 units to
about 160,000 sales, but the company
cautioned that this prediction could be
optimistic. Audi of America President
Scott Keogh said that the company
could reach its 2018 sales goal of
200,000 “sooner rather than later.”
By that year, VW Group aims to sell a
combined 1 million VW- and Audi-brand
vehicles annually in the United States.
“There are different routes by which
you could get to our 2018 goal,” said
Jonathan Browning, CEO of Volkswagen
Group of America, “but it’s important
that the VW brand is considered part of
the mainstream business in the U.S.”
Mark Rechtin, Gabe Nelson, Diana T.
Kurylko and Reuters contributed

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