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BMW Shifts Units From Europe To U.S.
by
Derek Kreindler
(IC: employee)
Published: October 18th, 2012
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Europe’s auto market implosion has led BMW to shift units earmarked for the continent over to the United States and China, where demand remains strong.
BMW Sales Chief Ian Robertson told Bloomberg that a recovery in Europe could take years, and that Europe’s crisis was having effects in other regions. “The slowdown in China is part of what’s happening in Europe,” Robertson said.
BMW’s global sales were up 14 percent in September, buoyed by the introduction of the new 3-Series. But the company must take measures to stop the bleeding in Europe, with Robertson remarking that a restructuring of its Spanish dealer network is under consideration.
Derek Kreindler
More by Derek Kreindler
Published October 18th, 2012 12:40 PM
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Folks seem to be misinterpretting this post. BMW is not going to try to send non-US market cars here, they are simply going to build more cars for the US. BMW is almost entirely a Build-to-Order operation, whether that order comes from an end customer, a dealer, or the official importer in some country makes no difference. In the past, they have had a certain number of production slots allocated to US models, now there are going to be more. I don't think this is going to result in "channel stuffing", but I am sure there will be incentives for dealers to hold more stock in inventory. With BMWs push for BTO, the smaller dealers in particular carry very few cars. My local dealer might have 20 or so, across all of BMWs lines. One thing I do know is that part of the reason sales of the 3-series have been flat is simply that the dealers have not been able to get them. Production has not kept pace with demand, and one of the local club chapter guys is having to wait 4 months for his BTO car. This in contrast to last year when the wait time was 6-8 weeks. BMW does NOT have an overcapacity problem, so no plant closings or layoffs seem likely. Or much in the way of customer incentives on the new cars.
Off the subject, but your car pic popups now have a "play" button far to close to the "X" (get this crap outta my car pic) button. At least on my browser, I cannot get rid of the add without playing it. Not good. Please think of getting rid of that part. I know you've gotta make money, but that's a bit beyond the pale.
For a moment I was looking forward to reading some European blogger complaining that BMW is good, but the damn Americans get the really great models.
If anything, this sounds like a threat to Spartanburg. The US is a mature market for BMW to say the least. They're not experiencing growth here. It they're planning on stepping up US volume from Germany, it will have to come out of other BMW factories' production.