BMW Says It Isn't Interested In Following Lexus Discounts Just To Be Number One

If I'm calculating this correctly... BMW ultimately had the highest incentive spending average. So now it's not about the numbers because they're losing, eh? hehe :P

I guess the shareholders aren't as disappointed anymore with this frosted statement.

They typically had no problem with offering discounts in the past. Sounds like posturing to me.

the article clearly states the spending average per car.
BMW $2,926
Lexus $3,746
Mercedes $3,879

where are you seeing that? According to the article BMW dropped their incentive average 27% from last year to $2926 and Mercedes lowered theirs 30% from last year to $3879. Meanwhile Lexus upped theirs to $3746 for cars and $2810 for trucks, both of which are increases of 300-400% over last year. So unless I'm misunderstanding right now BMW is spending the least on incentives. Last year, before BMW and Mercedes started cutting back, Lexus wasn't spending anything really on incentives (which isn't a surprise since their vehicles are less expensive in the first place), and Mercedes was spending 35% more than BMW, and they're still spending 33% more now. So if anyone is trying to buy marketshare, it doesn't look like it's BMW, it's Mercedes (who has cut back but is still spending the most) and Lexus (who has multiplied their spending 3-4x).

lol my bad for the poor wording. I meant that BMW originally had a much higher incentive because they had such a large decrease.

BMW will spend the money when they have to. They are in a new product cycle so they are not spending as much. It is a matter of time before they are back on the spending top. If it wasn't for the US market BMW would be a shadow of their current selfs.

This article is not look at all incentives. BMW spends most of their incentive money when the leasese end and they are stuck with the bill.

@IamevilHomer, that might have been true five or six years ago, but they've gone away from leasing quite a bit compared to years past. Mercedes is the brand that's attacking leases full force (check out the ads they're running for leases on the new E-class, S-class, GLK, and GL -- they're ridiculously cheap considering the prices of the cars). Don't get me wrong, they're selling right now because of it, and that's all anyone sees or cares about apparently (every other article on here is flamebait about which brands are selling the most), but they're going to be stuck with huge residual losses in a few years as all those (extremely subvented) leases mature and the market gets flooded with used ones dragging down resale values. It happened to BMW a few years ago, and it's going to happen to Mercedes even worse since their true resale values are lower to begin with.

In the past Lexus never had to discount terribly. Only recently with the bad press impacting sales have they experimented with it.

They are so full of $hit. They have been buying business for the last 10 years. Even with all the models they have they still can't beat Lexus. Their cars are overpriced because of german union labor.

lexus 'buys' its business by selling the cars at a huge discount to bmw.
what matters is what the cars SELL for, not the discounts off of MSRP. bwm would need to sell cars for 20% to 30% off of MSRP to SELL at the same price as lexus. for example:

go max out an IS350: $45,000
go max out a 335i: $60,000

loaded up a 750iL: $120,000
loaded up LS460L: $85,000

tricked out GX460: $58,000
tricked out X5: $85,000

dynamite:

lexus give them away right off the bat. they price them 20% to 30% less--and still they need incentives. that's sad.

re: prices i was simply showing apples to apples comparisons. to your point: how many $85,000 LS460s are there on the road? very few. etc. etc.

the point is: when you equip a lexus and a bmw EXACTLY the same, the bmw has a vastly higher MSRP.

You can only have a clear winner for sales if you had similarly priced vehicles.

In the situation where the BMWs are usually more expensive than the Lexus, it makes sense that Lexux would shift more units.

exactly. too bad most people on here aren't as logical as you.

Yea 70%+ is 3 series sales. They are over 85,000 a year. All BMW sell is cheap cars.........

know it all:

actually the 3-series is around half of BMW sales. and it's an amazing car for the money. you need to spend $25,000+ more to get a car that does everything better.

FYI: the camry-based RX and ES plus the corolla-based IS are 75% of lexus sales. now those are seriously phony 'luxury' cars.

the RX MSRP is $37,000...most go out the door for under $40,000. where are you seeing these $50,000 mommy mobile?

Yeah right BMW, or any car maker for that matter if they were to say the same thing as BMW.

Clear winner would be who makes more money per vehicle sold!

yup. and bmw is very, very profitable. lexus--no idea--they don't disclose their profits. wonder why....

Who cares who has the biggest discounts! I don't own any stock in these companies so why should I care? to many people act as if they own these car companies to often, BTW if I was in the market for a new car i would look at who had the biggest discounts first.

You forgot the rest of the title for the article.

"BMW Says It Isn't Interested In Following Lexus Discounts Just To Be Number One. Instead they are just going to make as many if not more models than the Japanese luxury brand."

sale price is what matters:

see http://blog.truecar.com/2010/10/15/luxe-brands-thriving-in-weak-economy/

average bmw sells for $51,000 after discounts, average lexus sells for $40,000 after discounts.

lexus is ranked 9th among luxury car brands in terms of average sale price.

but at least lexus beat lincoln, saab, volvo and acura and average sales price.