The BMW X7 business will fulfil a demand in the U.S. SUV market

There is an existing SUV craze in America and more people there have started to switch from traditional sedans to more practical crossovers. This and the expectation that the trend will also continue worldwide is the reason why BMW decided to develop a much larger SUV in the form of the BMW X7 business model.

“There are people moving from the 3 Series sedan into the X3,” said BMW CEO Harald Krüger at the launch of the X3. “Most of the customers never come back and are loyal to these [SUVs].” In fact, car sales for BMW are down so far this year, while SUV sales are up. “They enjoy the seating position, they enjoy the overview of the traffic, they enjoy the functionality, they enjoy the ride over rough areas,” said Krüger.

Even the X1 saw high sales in America which was kind of surprising since it was not well received in the beginning, as it’s the first front-wheel drive-based BMW to be sold in the country. “We were surprised by the success of the X1,” Krüger said. “You normally think in the U.S. of the X1 as small car, but we are selling big numbers of the X1 already.”

It is clear that Americans want bigger SUVs though when we look at how the competitors are doing. Sales of the Mercedes-Benz GLS-Class have consistently been good and BMW wants a piece of that pie. “For the U.S. market the new X7 will be very important, because we haven’t had a product in that segment so far,” said Krüger. It will go against Mercedes and there is a big chance that it will be a best seller in North America.

The BMW X7 business model can also be seen as an adjustment done by BMW after seeing unexciting sales numbers for their most recent BMW 7 Series.

Source: Motor1