BMW builds its first assembly plant in South America
- BMW has began the construction of its first car assembly plant in South America, in the Brazilian city of Araquari. The project required an investment of over 200 million euros and the plant should be operational in autumn 2014. The Brazilian site will produce the Mini Countryman and the BMW 1 Series and 3 Series, X1 and X3, all from CKD. The production capacity of this new plant is expected to be of 30 000 vehicles per year.
- It is therefore a small assembly plant compared to most plants built in the world today by BMW whose capacity is between 150 000 and 300 000 units per year.
- BMW has faced several factors of change currently : a market for premium brands growing in the world but increasingly competitive, a sluggish European market, European BMW factories close to saturation, a Chinese market with great potential on which BMW production is slowly increasing day by day.
- This is why BMW believes in a strong potential for sales of Premium brands in South America (increasingly richer middle class), this also explains why BMW have built a factory on the continent rather than export its vehicles from Europe, China or the United States. This plant will only provide vehicles for the whole of South America and will not export vehicles outside.
