Despite diesel ban for the most part of the year, rising input costs and demonetization The German triplet, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi ended 2016 on a positive note. All three carmakers registered their record ever sales in India in 2016, Mercedes emerged on top while BMW and Audi came at 2nd and 3rd position respectively. In addition, Mr Vikram Pawah has been appointed as the new President of BMW India effective from March 1, 2017, and will replace Frank Schloeder who was the acting President.
The Indian arm of BMW motors have revealed its sale figures for 2016 and the German giant has retailed 7861 units with a growth of 14 percent as compared to 2015. The figure includes 7500 BMW and 361 Mini cars. All new BMW X1, flagship luxury sedan new BMW 7 series and BMW 3 series Gran Turismo emerged as the most loved vehicles among the Indian contingent.
All new BMW 7-series was the most talked about BMW model as it was built on the new lightweight platform and lighter by 130 kgs compared to its predecessor. New BMW 7 series comes with many first in class features like autonomous parking, RWD CLAR cluster architecture, four wheel steering and iDrive 5.0 with hand gesture control.
BMW 750i is powered by a 4.4l V8 twin turbo engine that makes 444PS of output and 650Nm of peak torque while BMW730d utilises a B57 six cylinder diesel mill which is good for 265PS power. Both the engines are paired to an eight-speed automatic gearbox. Talking about the global sales, BMW sold 2.3 million units with growth of 5.2 percent
Commenting on the sales, Frank Schloeder, president (act.), BMW Group India, said: “2016 has not been an easy year for the automotive industry and that applies equally to BMW Group India. During the course of the year, developments in the Indian economy and policy framework shook the mechanisms of the auto industry. BMW Group India was faced with challenges no less than any other automobile manufacturer and was confronted with strong pressure from the beginning of the year. Despite a challenging business environment, BMW Group India has increased sales and market share”.
