In recent years, the advance and retreat of BMW's sales ranking in China have been accompanied by the personnel adjustment at the sales level.

       Recently, it is reported that BMW Greater China has announced a new round of management rotation, involving the heads of BMW's five sales regions in China (North, South, East, West and Southeast) and related functional departments.

Caijing car on the news contacted close to BMW, the other side said it was true, and the adjustment to the normal rotation of posts within BMW.

         According to BMW, the aim of the rotation is to promote the company's management innovation, to achieve a virtuous circle of knowledge, experience and "best practices" among various departments of the company, while cultivating and reserving more localized senior management talents for the company.

         Zhang Xiang, an auto industry analyst, believes that the rotation of sales department management is one of the sales strategies adopted by BMW to facilitate the managers of each sales region to learn from each other and enrich their own experience, so as to inject new blood into each sales region and thereby increase the overall sales volume.

        2015 is a key node of LOCALIZATION of BMW talents. That year, Liu Zhi succeeded Xu Zhijun as President of BMW (China) Automobile Trading Co., making him the company's first Chinese President in China.

        In addition, BMW implemented a large-scale job rotation in China in 2016. Shao Bin was transferred to the position of vice President of North Region, and Li Xuemin replaced Shao Bin as vice President of southeast region. Wang Hong, former VICE President of SALES of BMW China, was in charge of the BMW China Training Institute, and Yiming Bao succeeded to the position of VICE President of sales of BMW China.

       Data showed that BMW's personnel changes had a significant impact, with sales exceeding the 500,000 mark that year, up 11.3 per cent year on year.

         But BMW does not have a clear advantage over Mercedes and Audi, the other two luxury car brands.

       BMW delivered 594,000 BMWS and Minis in China in 2017, up 15.1 per cent year on year, outpacing Audi's 598,000 and Mercedes's 588,000.

       In 2018, BMW sold 63.9 vehicles in China, up 7.7 percent year on year, which is the best sales record since BMW officially entered the Chinese market in 1994. But Mercedes-benz's rapid growth in China was sustained, with sales of 653,000 cars that year, while Audi retained its single-brand title in the luxury market with deliveries of 661,000 new cars, up 11% from a year earlier. BMW fell from second place to third.

        During the failed 2017 and 2018 years, BMW also interlaced an internal reshuffle by reshuffling three key positions as head of sales and marketing in China, including Sean Green, Reiner Braun and Sean Shaobin at the top.

      In 2019, BMW Group led China's luxury car market with sales of 723,000 units, which was the first time BMW returned to the top spot after being overtaken by Audi in 2015. Mercedes-benz and Smart brands sold 702,000 cars in China. Audi dropped from first to third with 690,000 cars.

      Zhang Xiang, an analyst, believes that in the luxury car market, The competition between Mercedes-benz and BMW is particularly fierce, a very important reason is that China is the "world's largest single market" for Mercedes-benz and BMW respectively. Winning China means winning the global market to a certain extent.

       BMW delivered 477,100 BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce cars globally in the first three months of this year, down 20.6 per cent from a year earlier, its first-quarter results showed. Among them, BMW brand sales of 411,800 units, down 20.1 percent year on year. BMW, meanwhile, sold 116,500 BMWS and Minis in China in the first quarter, down 31 per cent from a year earlier.

      The top five brands in the first half of the year were Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Lexus and Cadillac, with 349,400 cars sold by Mercedes in qualifying.

       In June 2020, BMW announced That Shao Bin would succeed Liu Zhi as President of BMW (China) Trading Co., LTD.

       Zhang believes that the change of market environment makes the luxury car brand in the race at the same time also gradually under pressure, and tesla new forces to enter, and other building cars also split a group of users, luxury car big price cuts, in general decline in profits, "as a result of lower profits, budget higher marketing strategy is inappropriate, the internal sales director job rotation, become a special period of the marketing strategy."

BMW finally overtook Mercedes in August with 77,099 cars, regaining the top spot in the luxury car market, data showed.