Citing strong demand across all regions, BMW and Volkswagen both reported sharply higher unit sales in August on Sept 9.

VW sold a total 389,500 of its own-brand cars in August, an increase of 9.5% over the year-earlier figure, driven by rising demand in its biggest market, China.

BMW said sales of its BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce cars were up 7.4% at 110,891 units, the best number the group has ever achieved in the month of August. Taking the eight months to August as a whole, VW said it sold more than three million cars for the first time in that period, with overall sales up 12.1% at 3.34 million units.

At BMW, eight-month sales were up 16.8% at 1.073 million units, also achieving the million-mark for the first time in August.

BMW marketing and distribution chief Ian Robertson said his group was "predicting double-digit growth in September. We're fully on target to achieve our best-ever sales figure of more than 1.6 million units for the whole year."

His counterpart at VW, Christian Klingler, said: "Deliveries of our VW brand cars are continuing to develop favorably."

Both carmakers reported growth across all regions, with VW's sales in North America rising 12.6% in the eight months since January, followed by Asia/Pacific with an increase of 14.3% and European sales up 9.1%.

BMW performed best in its home market of Europe, where unit sales were 11.4% at 47,009 units in August alone, Asian sales rose by 9.2% to 29,311 units and sales in North, Central and South America edged up 1.5% to 29,916.

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