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.

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