On record course

November sales of cars made by the BMW group rose by 2.7 percent compared with a year earlier, reaching 174,996 vehicles worldwide, the auto maker, which is based in Munich, announced on Tuesday.

The result boosted sales between January and November to 1.77 million cars, BMW said, which was 6.8 percent more than over the first 11 months of 2012.

Noting that the carmaker was on target for a new annual sales record in 2013, BMW marketing chief Ian Robertson said: “We expect continuing positive sales in the month's ahead, despite challenging conditions especially in European markets.”

In 2012, BMW set its last sales record with deliveries of 1.85 million cars over the year. This year, demand for the group's brands, which include BMW and Rolls Royce luxury cars as well as the new Mini, was especially high in the United States and China, the company said.

Sales in China rose 19.7 percent between January and November, and 9.2 percent in the US. In Europe, they slipped 0.3 percent on the back of a major slump in the first half of the year.

BMW said that it was confident that it would remain the world's leading seller of premium cars in 2013.

uhe/pfd (AP, dpa, Reuters)