China overtook the US as the second- biggest market for BMW-branded luxury cars in May, helping the German carmaker's mainland partner boost first-half profits by 84.7 per cent, the firm's chairman said.
'I'm confident that with the growth we are seeing the day will come when China is No 1 globally,' Shenyang-based Brilliance China Automobile Holdings chairman Wu Xiaoan said yesterday.
'Our growth isn't limited by market demand but by our production capacity,' he said.
Brilliance sold 55,012 locally-made BMWs in the first six months of the year, an increase of 68.8 per cent from a year earlier and more than half the 100,000-unit sales target the company set itself in March. Wu said the firm's new 2011 target is 108,000 units.
The German firm sold another 60,000 imported cars on the mainland in the first half, according to J.D. Power and Associates data.
Mainland buyers putting down at least 296,000 yuan (HK$361,000) for a Shenyang-made 3 series BMW, or a minimum 420,000 yuan for a 5 series, must wait three to six months depending on customisation requests due to order backlogs, Brilliance non-executive director Lei Xiaoyang said.