More in the vein of "know your partners" -- from a story on Reuters today:


BMW group car sales rise 9.5 pct in November

FRANKFURT, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Global vehicle sales at German premium carmaker BMW (BMWG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) rose 9.5 percent in November to 114,044 units, fuelled by brisk demand for its revamped BMW 3-Series saloon, the company said on Wednesday.

Deliveries of its core BMW brand cars gained 10.4 percent to 98,788 vehicles last month, while sales of its Mini subcompact advanced 3.7 percent to 15,171 cars.

It delivered 85 Rolls-Royce Phantom luxury limousines, up 6.3 percent.

For the first 11 months, group sales rose 10.8 percent to 1,211,177 cars, keeping it well on track to hit its forecast for unit sales to grow at a high-single-digit rate in 2005.

Sales so far in 2005 have already beaten full-year 2004 levels.

"We can already predict that we will be the most successful supplier in the premium segment worldwide for 2005 as a whole," sales and marketing chief Michael Ganal said. "We are growing more quickly than our relevant competitors."

The BMW 3-Series sedan launched in March has already generated more than 200,000 unit sales, 38 percent more than its predecessor model in the same time period, BMW said.


As Fresh would say, "Nice!"