They're BACK! Lexus Passes Mercedes-Benz In May Sales - Focusing On The Hunt For BMW

Just a recap YTD:

BMW 127,181
Mercedes-Benz 125,118
Lexus 115,171
Audi 67,482
Acura 66,745
Infiniti 50,767

these are GLOBAL companies and only three luxury brands are players on that level: BMW, audi and mercedes. a global market that BMW has led for nearly a decade. looking at one market is incredibly myopic and ethnocentric.

"“The innovative new models coming out this year, such as the 2-Series Active Tourer and 4-Series Gran Coupe, will give us the momentum to keep growing in 2014,” Ian Robertson, BMW’s sales chief, said today in a statement.

Those models will likely help BMW retain the lead in global luxury-car sales for a 10th straight year in 2014. IHS Automotive estimates that BMW will sell 1.77 million cars, beating Audi’s 1.66 million and Mercedes’s 1.56 million."

http://www.autonews.com/article/20140311/RETAIL01/140319966/audi-passes-bmw-in-global-sales-to-take-lead-in-luxury-race

yeah...numbers are hard to deal with...

Well, I would hope that Lexus is competitive, with its array of products, its aggressive promotional campaigns, and the fact that both of Mercedes bread-and-butter (C and E) are oldest in their respective segments.

Cadillac Sales YTD are 69,176 and should be included

People thought the hourglass grill was going to cause them to tank...

LOL. Well, their two best-selling models have the least-prominent grilles (ES and RX) out of the entire lineup. Essentially, two Toyotas are keeping them competitive.

bingo. without the camry (ES), corolla (IS) and harrier (RX), lexus sales would barely make it into 5 digits.

the IS uses the corolla chassis. and the engine in the IS250 (90% of sales) is a sad little V6 making 184 lb-ft of torque. same engine that launched the last gen in 2006. slapping on a tacky grille and nike swooshes doesn't do much.

BMW and Mercedes also have all those cheap models to help reach CAFE standards.....

When I was with Audi in the 80's we got to 70k units the the 60min. story broke (unintended acceleration) and the sales tanked. It took alot of years to get back to this point. Audi is finally getting it.

I think they'll be back to #1 or #2 within a year. Their cars match up pretty well with the taste of American car market. Let's face facts, both Toyota/Lexus and Honda drop in market over the last 3 years was more influenced by their supply issues (tsunami and Thailand flood) than anything else. It's true that their quality was a glitch but that didn't factor as much as the supply chain.

Wrong. Lexus' sales were dropping before the natural disasters and it wouldn't have taken years to come back if a simple production shortage was the problem. The problem was their old arse lineup of dullard cars. Now they're finally meeting the Germans head on some segments like with the IS and RC. LS and GS are still laggards either in sales (GS) or the car itself (LS). You guys really need to stop blaming their fall on the tsunami because that was only part of it. That happened in 2011. What about 2012 and 2013, what is the excuse there?

that's the problem...dated product, dated engines from 2006 and very little excitement beyond a couple of low volume models.

i don't ever forsee lexus coming close to BMW, audi or mercedes sales of over 1.5MM per year.

keep chasing there ..

Lexus has done a great job of holding the line on their luxury sedans, not bottom-feeding the market to increase volume, and maintaining they brand strength.

BMW and Mercedes also sell more fleet sales than Lexus. Lexus outsold both BMW and Mercedes in Q1 this year to retail buyers, according to Bloomberg LP/IHS Automotive.

Lexus retail sales Q1 2014: 65475
BMW retail sales Q1 2014: 63353
Mercedes retail sales Q1 2014: 63483

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-06-06/lexus-beating-mercedes-shows-u-dot-s-dot-luxury-a-three-car-race-again

'not bottom feeding the market.' this has always been the lexus strategy...discounting.

so what do you call it when every single model is priced at a significant discount to every direct german competitor?

I call it Germans pricing themselves out of the market.

Why do the Germans need fleet sales to get on top anyway? And Mercedes/BMW always double Lexus incentives in Q4. What's up with that?

evander: how are the germans 'pricing themselves out of the market' if they sell more volume than lexus and at significantly higher prices?

regarding incentives, all the luxury brands run incentives and they are remarkably similar. only difference is that the germans are starting from much higher prices. for example, go build a 328i and equip it the same as an IS250...huge price difference.