H. Yoo
Research expert covering South Korea
BMW Group - Statistics & Facts
With a strong foothold in the luxury vehicle market, the German BMW Group has been investing in progress and innovation throughout the years to maintain its position in the automotive industry. In October 2024, the BMW Group's eponymous brand BMW ranked among the global top ten leading brands across sectors. Its main competitors, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz, were the only automotive brands higher up in the ranking. Founded in 1916, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG initially manufactured aircraft engines before producing its first motorcycle, the BMW R 32, in 1923. The manufacturer began producing automobiles in 1928, and automotive sales grew to become the group’s main revenue stream. To support this segment, the group had been investing in the use of artificial intelligence in vehicle manufacturing and in fleet electrification.
Including its MINI and Rolls-Royce brands, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG generated revenue of around 133.5 billion euros in the 2025 fiscal year. This was a decline compared to the peak recorded in 2023. The BMW Group's 2024 financial year is in line with the performance of other manufacturers, and its eponymous brand remained the leading luxury car brand in the world.
Tapping into the electric vehicle market
As the road vehicle and transportation industry is shifting towards electrification, autonomy, and mobility, BMW Group is aware it must stay relevant. Though the company did not rank among the five manufacturers with the highest share of the global plug-in electric vehicle market in 2025, it had been steadily increasing its fully electric vehicle deliveries. Notably, Rolls-Royce, which did not deliver any battery-electric cars to customers in 2022, sold some 1,900 all-electric vehicles in 2024. The automotive manufacturer also has plans to expand the electric model lines of its eponymous brand, adding the i4 and iX to its line-up in 2021. Sales of its BMW i series, which had been deeply impacted by the pandemic, declined by 25.8 percent in 2024, due in part to a drastic drop in sales for the i3 and i8 models. However, the BMW Group kept investing in research and development, including in research on electric powertrains.Â
A secure place in the global market
The company is headquartered in Germany but has factories in many other countries, including Brazil, India, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, Mexico, and China. The latter is becoming BMW's most important market: over a quarter of vehicle sales in 2025 were in China. BMW operates in a joint venture with the Chinese company BMW Brilliance Auto.Â
In the United States, BMW was the second-best perceived car brand as of December 2024. This popularity was in part linked with the brand's good online visibility. As of October 2024, in the United States, 30 percent of consumers had noticed the brand in the media, on social media, or in advertising in the previous three months. Compared to BMW, its competitors Audi and Mercedes-Benz were noticed by a lower share of consumers. In Germany, the company's country of origin, nearly four in 10 consumers noticed the eponymous brand in the media, making it the brand with the highest visibility score.
The BMW Group's 2025 financial performance was not as positive as its 2024 results, but is in line with some of the trends in the broader automotive industry. On a regional level, the brand maintains its popularity levels in the United States and Germany.
