BMW has just walked away with the best sales figures for a luxury automaker in the United States last year.

In 2015, the German manufacturer managed to sell a total of 346,023 cars, a 1.8 per cent increase in its U.S. sales in 2014. That comes despite the fact that sales in December fell by 17 per cent to 34,625 units.

Proving particularly popular among consumers last year was the BMW X5 of which 54,997 were sold in the U.S., a full 17 per cent more than 2014. Of equal importance is the electric BMW i3 which in its first full year of sales, saw 11,024 examples find homes. Sales of the BMW M brand also increased dramatically by 68 per cent over 2014 to 14,504 vehicles.

Compared to BMW, Japanese marque Lexus sold a total of 344,601 cars in the United States throughout 2015, coming home as the second most successful luxury brand. Mercedes-Benz then came in third following sales of 343,088 cars and following its 2015 success, BMW has been the most popular luxury brand in the U.S. for four of the last five years.

Lagging behind BMW and Mercedes is Audi. Last year, they cracked the 200,000 barrier for the first time after selling 202,202 cars, an 11.1 per cent jump over 2014.

PHOTO GALLERY