BMW Australia expects 2026 deliveries to fall from record as boss rules out price war

Record year, then a projected step back

BMW Group Australia is forecasting a retreat from its strongest-ever sales year, with chief executive Vikram Pawah telling GoAuto the brand is projected to ease from 26,842 deliveries in 2025 to around 23,428 this year. He attributed the softer outlook to waning confidence in the economy and tightening discretionary spending rather than any loss of competitive standing. The 2026 figure is a projection, not a completed result. ¹

A different projection is carried in the August dataset cited by ad-hoc-news, which forecasts BMW's Australian sales to fall from 26,842 units in 2025 to 23,900 units in 2026, a reduction of 2,942 vehicles or 10.96 percent. That figure is close to GoAuto's more recent October projection of around 23,428, but the two forecast sets remain unreconciled, with the October number being the later. ¹²

The projected total would represent roughly a 10 percent decline if the first eight months of 2026 carry through to year's end, according to GoAuto's Market Insight analysis. Notably, that volume is close to the 23,619 cars BMW sold in Australia in 2017, and Pawah's earlier stint running the local operation between 2018 and 2020 coincided with similarly steady sales around the 23,000 mark. He returned to the Australian role last year after leading the brand in India. ¹

The record 2025 result, which GoAuto reported in January, was BMW's third consecutive year as Australia's best-selling premium brand, up 1.9 percent on 2024 and driven by SUVs that accounted for 70 percent of sales, led by the X1 on 5,306 units, the new-generation X3 on 4,909 and the X5 on 3,673. Mini added a record 5,485 sales, up 38 percent. ⁶⁷

The whole premium segment is retreating

GoAuto's August analysis of VFACTS data showed BMW is far from alone: eight of the nine established premium marques assessed recorded lower year-to-date sales, with combined volume for Audi, BMW, Genesis, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Mini and Volvo down to 53,735 units in a market that grew 1.6 percent. BMW remained comfortably the strongest performer with 14,097 deliveries and a 2.0 percent share of the total market despite a 12.8 percent decline. ³⁴

GoAuto's October report projected Mercedes-Benz to fall around 7.1 percent to 21,226 units for the full year, while Audi's slide continues to worsen with a projected 28.1 percent decline to about 11,520 sales, and Lexus and Volvo deliveries are projected to recede by 12.3 percent and 2.4 percent respectively. Its August analysis had produced different full-year figures for both German rivals — Mercedes-Benz at 21,560 and Audi at approximately 12,700 — and the two sets of projections remain unreconciled in the available reporting, with the October figures being the more recent. ¹³

By comparison, BMW's projected 12.8 percent year-to-date decline sits better than the average 18.5 percent fall across the premium cohort, a relative-performance point drawn from the same dataset. ²³

Pawah: Chinese rivals are not the cause

Speaking with GoAuto, Pawah rejected the idea that rapid growth from Chinese brands is behind BMW's dip, grouping newcomers such as Zeekr, XPeng and Denza with 'near-premium' players including Volvo and Lexus rather than direct competitors. 'It's not the competition arriving,' he said. 'There has always been competition in that price point where we don't exist ... it's always been there in that sub-$80,000 (range) we have never existed in.' ¹

The adjacent field is nonetheless expanding quickly, and GoAuto's August data shows it is already producing substantial volume. Zeekr has recorded 7,950 year-to-date sales, up from just 522 at the same time last year, while BYD's premium arm Denza has logged 2,693 sales since entering the market at the start of the year. GoAuto's October report projects Zeekr could reach 15,000 sales this year — nearly two-thirds of BMW's projected volume — with Denza rising above 4,000 cars and Tesla, on strong Model Y demand, likely to exceed 50,000 deliveries, roughly double BMW's projected result. ¹³

GoAuto's own analysis suggests there is little firm evidence that Zeekr or Denza are bleeding customers away from BMW, and notes the broader weakness across established luxury marques may support Pawah's view that macroeconomic pressures are at work. It also flags that the market may be experiencing twin forces: weaker confidence at the traditional premium end, alongside rapid growth from value-led semi-premium EV brands in adjacent price bands. Notably, GoAuto points out that weaker confidence at the premium end has been exacerbated by a long period of price increases for key models, qualifying the purely demand-driven explanation. ¹

The wider economic backdrop cited in the report includes a 5.2 percent fall in Australian consumer sentiment in September, the Reserve Bank lifting the cash rate to 4.60 percent on 29 September, and ABS data showing discretionary household spending dropped 0.3 percent in August, though it remained about seven percent higher than a year earlier. ¹

Strategy: retention, not price cuts

Pawah told GoAuto that BMW plans to keep leading the premium sales race by leaning harder on customer retention, protection of residual values, product choice and its established retail network, and he has ruled out big price cuts. 'It's easy to sell the first car, let me see how many can sell the second one,' he said. ¹

BMW says its Australian dealer partners have committed $400 million to facility investment, and almost half of its service technicians are trained to maintain high-voltage vehicles — capabilities the brand sees as structural advantages in tempting existing owners to upgrade. GoAuto observes the test will come as Chinese newcomers build out their own owner databases and pursue repeat buyers of their own. ¹

A stronger 2027 and a tougher global backdrop

Pawah's projection also reflects product timing: deliveries on the new-generation iX3 are only now commencing, and BMW planners expect a bumper 2027 as further iX3 variants arrive alongside a new-generation X5 in petrol, diesel, electric and hybrid formats, plus an all-new 3 Series giving existing sedan owners a clearer upgrade path, GoAuto reports. ¹

Globally, the picture is more mixed. BMW Group's 2025 results, as reported by Autotalk Australia, showed earnings before tax of 10.236 billion euros with a 7.7 percent margin unchanged from the prior year, and the company expected 2026 deliveries broadly in line with 2025, though with slightly lower margins due to tariffs. ⁸

First-half 2026 figures reported by Il Sole 24 Ore told a harder story: revenue down 8 percent to 62.27 billion euros, net profit down 28.5 percent, group deliveries down 4.2 percent, and a 20.4 percent first-half delivery decline in China — weakness offset partly by growth in Europe and the United States. The same report noted BMW's outlook for 2026 remains cautious, with car deliveries expected to fall slightly, an EBIT margin of between 1 and 3 percent, and pre-tax profit set to fall significantly. It also disclosed that the automotive division's EBIT fell 60.7 percent to 629 million euros in the second quarter, with the division's margin down from 5.4 percent to 2.3 percent, and that the group has launched a cost-cutting programme and an organisational review. ⁵

The profit pressure deepened in the second quarter: a DAX-wide earnings overview reported by ad-hoc-news showed BMW's group EBIT fell 39 percent year on year in Q2 2026, making it one of the more pronounced profit declines among Germany's large listed manufacturers and well below the 12 percent average operating profit decline across the DAX index. ²