BMW has won the luxury sales crown as the automaker finished 2019 with 324,826 sales in the United States.
Sales were up 4.4% from 2018 and BMW credits the increase to crossovers such as the X3, X5 and X7. The company also noted the all-new 3-Series was a “top performer in the premium sedan segment.”
While the 3-Series is off to a strong start, sales of BMW crossovers jumped 35.5% from 2018 to 159,277 units. Car sales, on the other hand, fell -14.4% to 165,549 units. If this trend continues, a majority of BMW sales will come from crossovers in the near future.
Also Read: BMW Under SEC Investigation For Possibly Inflating Their Sales Figures
Mercedes wasn’t far behind as they sold 316,094 units in 2019 – excluding the Sprinter and Metris vans. Sales were essentially flat compared to 2018 as the company only sold an additional 135 vehicles.
Like BMW, car sales plummeted as models such as the CLA (-45.0%), C-Class (-18.6%), E- / CLS-Class (-13.6%), S-Class (-16.4%), SLC (-7.7%) and SL (-20.5%) all saw significant declines. The only bright spots were the all-new A-Class, which racked up 17,641 sales, and the AMG GT 4-Door Coupe which helped to increase AMG GT sales 175.9% to 4,208 units.
On the crossover and SUV side, sales were up for every model except the GLA which saw a decline of 8.3%. G-Class sales were up 85.1% to 7,348 units, while the GLE and GLC saw increases of 8.6% and 5.6%, respectively.
Lexus finished third as the company moved 298,114 vehicles in 2019. That’s a slight decrease of 0.1% and the drop can be chalked up to slow selling sedans such as the IS (-34.9%), GS (-48.8%) and LS (-40.6%). On the bright side, ES sales climbed 5.9% and RC sales jumped 36.7%.
All crossover and SUV models also saw declines with the exception of the UX. That model arrived at dealerships in late 2018 so sales technically jumped 3,592.1% to 16,725 units in 2019.
Fourth place went to Audi which saw sales climb 0.4% to 224,111 units. Cadillac was also up 1.0% to 156,246 while Lincoln sales jumped 8.3% to 112,204 units.
Japanese luxury brands had a tough year as Acura sales were down 1.0% to 157,385 units. However, that’s not nearly as bad as Infiniti’s performance where sales dropped a staggering 21.1% to 117,708 units. Every single Infiniti model saw declines with the biggest drops coming from the QX30 (-60.1%), Q60 (-44.4%) and Q70 (-43.0%).
