BMW and Mercedes-Benz continue their fight for sales dominance in the premium market. But which of these Teutonic foes is winning the race after the first three quarters of 2022?

We’re already three quarters deep into 2022. So, which German automaker is leading the premium sales race at this point of the year? Let’s examine the latest global sales figures from BMW and Mercedes-Benz to find out.

For the period from the start of January to the end of September 2022, the BMW Group – which as a reminder comprises the BMW, Mini, Rolls-Royce and BMW Motorrad brands – reported a worldwide sales figure of 1 747 889 units, representing a year-on-year drop of 9.5%.

Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz Cars (which includes Smart as well as commercial-based models the T-Class, V-Class and EQV, but seemingly excludes other Mercedes-Benz Vans products) ended the reporting period on 1 518 200 units, or a year-on-year decline of 6%. By our maths, that puts the Stuttgart-based firm nearly 230 000 units behind its Bavarian foe.

Of course, things aren’t quite that simple, so it’s worth examining the figures a little more closely. For instance, we can see Mini accounted for a healthy 209 271 units of the BMW Group’s tally, while a further 159 333 units came courtesy of the motorcycle division (and another 4 701 units from Rolls-Royce).

We also see it’s a somewhat closer race when we compare how the BMW and Mercedes-Benz brands (as opposed to groups) performed. The Munich-based automaker saw a 9.9% year-on-year decrease to finish the third quarter on 1 533 917 registrations worldwide, while its Stuttgart-based nemesis reached 1 503 100 units (a fall of 6%), around 30 000 units off the pace.

BMW says its iX3 is helping to drive strong growth in the battery-electric sector.

What about the fight in the all-important all-electric sector? Well, the BMW Group says it registered 128 196 fully electric BMW and Mini vehicles (up 114.8%, year on year) over the first three quarters of the year, while Mercedes-Benz reported year-on-year growth of 126% over the same period, finishing on 75 400 battery-powered sales (interestingly, opting to exclude Smart from this figure).

Unfortunately, Mercedes-Benz did not release Mercedes-AMG sales details for the first three quarters of 2022, so we don’t have a figure to compare with the BMW M division’s 124 459 registrations (note this includes not only full-fat M products but also M Performance models). For the record, the M division says it is “on track for another record year to mark its 50th anniversary”.

We’ll check back in on the premium sales race once 2022 is complete…

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