With the July 2007 sales figures, more than 200,000 MINIs have now been sold in USA! I also only realized today, more than 50% of MINIs in USA are the “S” version (97,914 Coopers and 102,537 Cooper S – including GPs). This has actually been true since April 2006 … interesting, especially since MINI originally predicted only 30% Cooper S versions. I wonder what the split is in other countries?
For complete month-by-month MINI USA sales figures, go here (I update this data every month)
M&I / GBMINI 
I’ve always thought we would have passed the Brits by now. As far as the MCS VS MC, having driven both, for my money I’d never have an MC. I just like the power and look of the MCS. I have had spirited conversations with “Former” MC owners who, at that time, felt they were quite happy with there MC, they professed they would never change. All have now come over to the scoop-side, all. One of those was a very famous blog owner who now owns a very slick R56 MCS. Incoming…… ! ;¬)
BTW, my wife thinks I’m a MINI fanatic. Compared to you Ian and others I have met I’m a lightweight. You actually keep graphs of MINI sales, now that’s impressive.
Given that they only sell two versions in the US, why did they think the S would only get 30% of the sales..? Surely 50/50 was a better estimate..! The breakdown in other countries will be skewed by the availability of the D… weren’t we supposed to start getting more diesels now that we’ve got low sulphur fuel..?
Ian, looking at your sales breakdown numbers, the R56 is indeed selling but it isn’t braking any records. The car is hardly breaking the 20%-25% sales increase threshold, month-per-month in comparison to the previous model.
The sales breakdown tell a very different picture from the BMW and MINIUSA sales news releases.
Just by looking the sales numbers I can tell that BMW is quicjkly coming to the uncomfortable position of factory overcapacity and nearly flat demand for the product. MINI is slowly but surely flooding the US market with unsold MINIs. No wonder MINIUSA is offering factory subsidized lease deals to move the dusty metal out of dealer lots.
I think there’s some truth in what you say – but there’s also the possibility that MINI is moving MINIs to other countries in preference to USA, due to the dollar exchange rate.
The upcoming Clubman makes more sense in that scenario – it brings in more money per car, and it also refreshes the MINI brand with a new model.
I tend to aggree with Ian on the dollar exchange rate. It’s becoming tougher and tougher for MINI INTL to keep the price point where it is, while the USD is loosing it’s buying power. Having been working for a MINI dealer for over two years, and tracking all of our sales since day one – I would not say that sales are “nearly flat” at all. Our sales figures and demand still seems to be high for these cars and we have the records to show it. July for us was better then any other year we’ve been open (for July sales). We do have cars on our parking lot, but that is because they increased supply, not because demand has dropped.