Munich, June 16, 2026: a BMW press release lands in the middle of a trading session. On every hundred euros of cars sold, the group will keep less than three this year, against almost ten two years earlier. And yet BMW is still the world's biggest premium carmaker by volume.

BMW made a rare choice: never decide between petrol, hybrid and electric, and never break prices. In the United States, that doctrine produces a third record year, because building in Spartanburg shelters the group from import duties while Audi imports everything. In China, the same doctrine costs it one sale in four in four years, facing a market that had already switched to new energy vehicles.

Chapters
00:00 Munich, June 2026
01:11 Refusing to choose
03:16 The Spartanburg plant
05:12 The market that had already decided
07:30 So what's the lesson?

Sources: BMW Group annual results from 2021 to 2025, profit warning of June 16, 2026, accounts of the BMW Brilliance joint venture, 2025 deliveries from Audi and Mercedes-Benz, American, European and Chinese registrations, IntoTheMinds analyses.

The full analysis, with all the charts: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/

This episode was written by Pierre-Nicolas Schwab, founder of the market research firm IntoTheMinds.

Get our market analyses every week: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/newsletter/inscription

#BMW #Automotive #China #MarketResearch #Strategy

The team sports aisle, March 2026: the Kipsta football drops below 3 euros, and sales nearly double in 15 days. 2 years earlier, Decathlon announced it wanted to become a sports brand that could take on Nike.

In March 2024, the group set out to stop being a retailer and become a brand, and its global profit lost 1 euro in every 7 the following year. Its industrial machine, which designs 6 out of 10 products and brings customers back more often than any competitor, is built for unit cost, not for desire. The 2025 return to affordability puts it back on the one battlefield its competitors can copy in a single season.

Chapters
00:00 A football under 3 euros
01:06 Becoming Nike
03:24 What the factory dictates
05:52 Price can be copied
08:14 The key takeaway

Sources: Decathlon group financial results 2023 to 2025, group communications on the March 2024 strategic overhaul and the 2025 return to affordability, Intersport's August 2025 price commitments, market shares of multisport retailers in France, IntoTheMinds analyses.

The full analysis, with all the charts: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/

This episode was written by Pierre-Nicolas Schwab, founder of the market research firm IntoTheMinds.

Get our market analyses every week: https://www.intotheminds.com/blog/newsletter/inscription

#Decathlon #Sport #Retail #MarketResearch #Strategy