Talk about aggressive goals — BMW says it plans to boost sales to significantly more than 2 million units per year by 2020. BMW announced the new strategy in late September in Munich.
The company said it would be open to acquisitions to spur growth and reported that it looked at buying a fourth brand (BMW currently owns BMW, Mini and luxury marque Rolls Royce). "Our growth would have slowed down with strategically acting," said BMW Chief Executive Norbert Reithofer. "It was clear to us that those recipes successful in the past would not work for the future." BMW promised to pay a higher dividend to investors in 2007 and to allow shareholders to participate to a greater degree in the company's success. BMW has been accused of hoarding cash and that recent sales growth has not increased the bottom line earnings. BMW says it will boost production at its U.S. plant in Spartanburg South Carolina to 240,000 vehicles per year by 2012 and that the company's Mini plant in Oxford, England will produce 260,000 vehicles. By then, BMW's production in China is expected to reach 14,000 units. BMW's two top priorities are to lower material costs and to better communicate with investors.
