KEY POINTS:
BMW, the world's largest premium carmaker, will build the next-generation X3 mid-size sport utility vehicle in its United States plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the company has announced.
"We will expand the production capacity of our US plant in Spartanburg in the medium term from the current 140,000 to well over 200,000 vehicles a year,'' CEO Norbert Reithofer said in a speech at the carmaker's annual general meeting.
Reithofer confirmed the group's vehicle sales and earnings forecast for the year, which foresees a rise in pretax profit adjusted for last year's one-off gain on a Rolls-Royce exchangeable bond and sales of over 1.4 million units.
The X3, launched in January 2004 and refreshed last September, is assembled in Austria by Magna Steyr, a unit of Canadian car parts giant Magna International.
BMW now builds Z4 roadsters and X5 SUVs in Spartanburg. It has decided to build an all new coupe-shaped SUV crossover in Spartanburg, dubbed the X6.
Reithofer, who has initiated the first strategic review at BMW since 2001, said in mid-March the group needs to build its production volume in Spartanburg to roughly 200,000 units or more in the next two to three years to help to hedge against currency fluctuations. It built just 105,000 vehicles in Spartanburg last year.
Partly as a result, the company suffered adverse forex headwinds of 666 million ($902 million) last year and another 677 million in 2005, given the strong euro.
BMW sold 31,291 units of the X3 in the US last year, a marginal gain over the 30,769 delivered to customers in 2005.
Overall, the group sold 114,000 units of the X3 last year worldwide, a gain of 3 per cent.
