El Cid

MB is No. 1 in US premium auto sales for 2014. 356,136 to #2 BMW at 339,738 per a recent newspaper article. Only MB, BMW, Lexus, Audi, Cadillac, Acura, Infiniti and Lincoln at 94,474 were listed.
Per March 2015 Motor Trend article, more than 70% of new Audi A3 and MB CLA customers are new to "premium" cars. Also, premium brands account for only 12% of global sales, but deliver 50% of profits for auto industry.
Happy Motoring!

ddeliber

do those numbers take into account Smart and or Mini? The BMW boards are claiming that BMW is No 1 because the 356k number includes Smart. If this is true, then I think that we can all agree that Smart cars do not qualify as a "premium auto"

drsaab

Mini sells a lot of cars.

I do not think smart even sells 16k cars in the US to make up the MB lead over BMW.

ddeliber

I just took a look at goodcarbadcar.com :http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2015/01...-by-model.html

The notes at the end of the table had this:
"^ Brand total includes sales of commercial vans, without which Mercedes-Benz was up 5.7% to 330,391 in 2014"

Mini and Smart were not included in BMW and MB numbers. Not sure why Sprinter was.

rediesel

These sales numbers don't mean a whole lot to me since I don't base my purchase on who sells the most. It's unusual sprinter was counted, but based on the one the Carter's have it's safe to call it luxury. Sprinter-Maybach sounds nice.

ddeliber

I am with you on this. However, there is one benefit of the two fighting over bragging rights... Come the end of the year, the discounts get pretty darn good!

BTW, I think I could suffer through ownership of one of those "commercial luxury" vans!

El Cid

The article referred specifically to "premium" vehicles. Mini and Smart are makes under the corporate umbrellas, but not BMW's or MB's. Just as Ford is not part of Lincoln, Lexus is not part of Toyota, etc. for purposes of this report.
Sprinter I don't know about. But seems it would not count as a premium vehicle, especially since some MB dealers don't even sell them.
Not really all that important, but chasing after "Number One" does sometimes result in lower selling prices and other incentives.

MBSebas87

Agree 100%!!

Germancar1

All those numbers are wrong.

BMW was the best selling luxury brand last year. Those MB numbers are counting Sprinter sales, those are commercial vans, not luxury vehicles.

BMW - 339,738
MB - 330,391
Lexus - 311,389



http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...300015792.html

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...300015788.html

http://lexusenthusiast.com/2015/01/0...-sales-report/


M