- New figures from BMW show the performance M division had its best ever year in 2024.
- The M division sold 206,582 vehicles, accounting for 9.4 percent of total BMW production.
- The M2 and M3 both experienced growth but the electric i4 M50 was the best seller.
BMW’s M performance brand had its best year ever in 2024, new figures show. Far from being a tiny cog in BMW’s success, M is now a key component, its cars accounting for 9.4 percent of all BMWs sold in the 12 months just gone.
M pushed past the 200,000-unit mark last year for the first time in its history, delivering 202,530 cars, and improved on that in 2024 by recording 206,582 registrations—a 2.0% increase year-over-year.
Related: BMW XM Had A Terrible First Full Year With Just 1,974 Units Sold In The US
You might be surprised – or even disappointed – to learn that the most popular car in that impressive year-long push was an EV. Yep, the best selling M car was the all-electric i4 M50, a four-door coupe equipped with a 537 hp (544 PS / 400 kW) bi-motor drivetrain that gets it to 60 mph (97 kmh) in 3.7 seconds.
The good news for more hardcore M fans is that the brand’s true M cars experienced massive growth ensuring they’ll be with us for a while to come. And we don’t just mean they’re ‘true’ M cars because they’re powered by combustion engines. BMW itself make a distinction between M (performance) models like the M340i, X7 M60i and i4 M50i and what it calls “high-performance” M models like the M2, M3 and M5.
The M2, helped no doubt by a recent power bump from 453 hp (460 PS) to 473 hp (480 PS), enjoyed a 64 percent sales lift, while M3 Touring registrations climbed 57 percent. In total, sales of the high performance cars was up 8 percent to 66,805 – versus a more modest 4 percent uptick for M overall – and we wouldn’t be surprised to see the numbers improve even more during 2025 as the new hybrid M5 and M5 Touring start to arrive in dealers.
Even the M car M fans love to hate, the XM, had a good year, according to BMW. Sales of the plug-in SUV grew 16 percent during 2024, figures reveal. But considering the thing didn’t go on sale until the second quarter of 2023 we’re not sure we’d pay too much mind to that data or BMW’s attempt to celebrate its performance.
Last year we reported that in its first full year on sale in the US, XM sales dropped by 14.7 percent, the model finding just 1,974 buyers in 2024 despite the presence of some generous discounts.
