La bonanza de los carros Alemanes
Sus ventas aumentan en US y China.
AUTOS Updated April 4, 2012, 7:56 a.m. ET
German Car Makers Reap China Gains
By STEVE MCGRATH And CHRISTOPH RAUWALD
BERLIN—Germany's booming luxury car makers have reported further sales increases in March, fueled by strong demand in China and an accelerating recovery in the U.S., the world's biggest autos market, even as the European market continues to shrink.
Newly manufactured Mercedes automobiles outside Daimler's new factory in Kecskemet, Hungary, on March 29.
BMW AG, the world's leading luxury auto maker, Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz brand and Volkswagen AG's Audi brand have all reported sales increases in key foreign markets as they push hard into China, where disposable incomes continue to rise, and increase production in the U.S., where sales of cars and light trucks rose nearly 13% in March from a year ago.
"We have had an outstanding first quarter and the best ever in the company's history," BMW sales chief Ian Robertson said at the New York Auto Show, according to prepared remarks.
"We have seen over 16% growth in the U.S. this quarter and we expect further momentum with the new BMW 3 Series sedan on the market, as well as the introduction of the BMW X1 [sports utility vehicle] to the U.S. in September this year," Robertson said.
Daimler Wednesday reiterated its earnings targets for 2012 as it reported a 12% increase in Mercedes cars during the first quarter and said it still expects vehicle sales to rise significantly this year. The company is also the world's biggest maker of trucks and reported a 20% rise in truck sales in the first quarter.
Further evidence of the importance of the booming Chinese market to car makers came from Audi, which said it plans to increase sales by a double-digit percentage in coming months in China following a 37% rise in March. In the first quarter of the year, Audi's China sales were up 40% to 90,063 vehicles, and it expects the introduction of its A6L model, to be presented at the Beijing auto show starting April 23, to further drive sales.
BMW said it sold more than 75,000 vehicles in China in the first quarter, around 30% more than the 58,506 sold a year ago.
Overnight sales figures from the U.S. market have provided a further boost to the European luxury car makers, offsetting fears they have become too reliant on China even though the recovery in the American market is largely being driven by demand for small and fuel-efficient cars due to stubbornly high gas prices.
BMW's March U.S. sales were up 13% to 26,382 vehicles, Mercedes' sales rose 13% to 25,508 and Audi's sales rose 18% to a record 11,585 vehicles.
In contrast, European car makers more reliant on domestic markets are braced for more bad news as consumers put off purchases amid the prevailing economic uncertainty in the region.
"For 2012, expectations for the market in Europe are not encouraging," said Sergio Marchionne, chief executive of Italian automotive group Fiat SpA, F +0.16% at the company's annual shareholder meeting.
Europe-wide car registration data are due to be released April 17 but figures released this week showed the market in France, Europe's biggest market after Germany, contracted 24% in March while the Italian market shrank 27%. Registrations of new cars made by France's PSA Peugeot Citroën SA, Renault SA and Fiat fell by 30% or more in their home markets. Fiat described its sales performance as the worst for the month of March in 32 years.
Demand in Europe is likely to decline for a fifth year in a row to around 13 million vehicles from 13.6 million vehicles last year, Mr. Marchionne said.
But Mr. Marchionne was upbeat about the prospects for the U.S. market, where sales of vehicles made by its 58.5%-owned unit Chrysler Group LLC have surged, rising 34% in March from a year ago.
Daimler said it expects the market outside Europe to continue booming over the next eight years, with the global market growing by 40 million vehicles a year until 2020 and India emerging as the world's third-largest autos market by the same year, behind China and the U.S.
Despite the predicted sales increase, Daimler said earnings before interest and tax from ongoing business are only expected to come in at last year's level of €9 billion ($11.91 billion) because of heavy investments in new technology, extra production capacity and expansion of its product range.
The group has been overtaken by BMW as the world's biggest luxury car maker in recent years, but it was also overhauled by Audi in 2011. It has targeted 2020 as the year it wants to regain top spot.
Daimler has teamed up with Renault to share the cost of developing new small cars and more efficient engines to meet increasingly stringent emissions targets in many countries.
—Gilles Castonguay in Turin contributed to this article.
Write to Christoph Rauwald at
christoph.rauwald@dowjones.com