The root cause becomes obvious once you look at delivery data. According to Reuters' July 10, 2026 report, BMW's global deliveries fell 4.9% in the second quarter to 590,962 units, with China sales alone plunging 30.2% year-on-year in that same quarter. For the first half of 2026 overall, BMW Group delivered 1.1567 million vehicles globally, down 4.2%, while China deliveries fell 20.4% to 261,773 units.
More structurally significant: for the first time since 2013, Europe overtook China as BMW's largest sales region. China's share of BMW's global deliveries, which once peaked at 33.5%, has fallen to roughly 25.5% — and even lower when narrowed to first-half 2026 alone. One concrete driver: new-energy-vehicle (NEV) penetration in China reached 54.1% in the first quarter of 2026, while BMW's own NEV share in that market sat at just 6.2% — a gap that ordinary marketing can't close, because domestic manufacturers like BYD have already claimed the price and feature segment that China's middle-class buyers actually want.
BMW Isn't Bleeding Alone
BMW is actually a relative latecomer to Germany's auto-industry restructuring wave. Volkswagen is pushing to double its planned cuts to 100,000 positions. Porsche plans to eliminate 5,000 additional jobs by 2035. Audi has already announced 7,500 job cuts in Germany by 2029, mostly in administration and development — a pattern nearly identical to BMW's own. Mercedes-Benz and Porsche posted second-quarter delivery declines of 8% and 16% respectively, pressured by the same competitive dynamics in China.