The Automobile Bavaria group, the main BMW dealer on the domestic market, intends to invest over 2.5 million euros in building a second office in Germany, after the company opened its first BMW and MINI dealership outside Romania at the end of last month.
As BMW's policy in Germany does not allow the setting up of new representative offices, Automobile Bavaria had to acquire an under-performing dealer in order to set up new the company Autohaus Schmidt. In 2007, the sales target for the new facility is 120 new units and as many as 60 second-hand units. Estimates for 2008 are increased to 200-250 units, and for 2009 the sales target is as high as 400 units. In comparison, in the first five months of the year BMW dealer sales on the Bucharest market saw figures climb to 80 units.
Autohaus Schmidt is located in Wolfratshausen (about 30 km north of Munich) and is considered to be among the wealthiest residential areas close to the German city. Over 1.27 million cars were registered in Germany in the first five months of this year, down 9.6% on 2006, according to ACEA.
As of July 1, domestic imports of BMW and MINI vehicles were taken over by the domestic representative office of the BMW Group. Automobile Bavaria preserves its status as the official importer of BMW motorcycles and continues to manage fleet sales operations.
Automobile Bavaria holds or controls a stake in eight of the nine Romanian BMW dealers, owning over 12 locations, three of which are located in Bucharest.
In the first four months of this year, BMW sales increased by 19.1% compared with the same period last year, with the best-selling model proving to be the BMW 3 Series, which sold 263 units, seeing a 96.4% sales increase against the first four months of 2006.
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