Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Lexus Top US Best-Selling Premium Brands in 2018

Mercedes-Benz led the way in sales for premium brands last year in the United States with 353,183 units sold.

It wasn’t all good for Mercedes-Benz, however, as the German automaker saw a sharp 15.79% decline in sales last year.

BMW came in second with 311,014 recorded sales in 2018 while Lexus rounded out the top 3 with 298,302 units sold. Audi (220,737 units sold) and Buick (207,223 units sold) complete the top 5 best-selling premium brands in the US last year.

It was announced yesterday that Tesla had outsold Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Lexus to become the top luxury automaker, but that’s just looking at the last quarter of the year. Overall, Tesla finished the year with 197,517 vehicles sold.

Still, that represents a dramatic increase of 294% in sales for the California-based automaker. Tesla finished 4th in December sales for premium vehicles, selling almost 5 times more cars last month than in 2017.

Here is the complete best-selling premium brands for the US market in 2018.

Mercedes-Benz – 353,183 units sold

BMW – 311,014 units sold

Lexus – 298,302 units sold

Audi – 220,737 units sold

Buick – 207,223 units sold

Tesla – 197,517 units sold

Acura – 158,934 units sold

Cadillac – 153,863 units sold

Infiniti – 149,280 units sold

Lincoln – 103,584 units sold

Volvo – 94,615 units sold

Land Rover/Range Rover – 92,143 units sold

Porsche – 59,116 units sold

Jaguar – 30,254 units sold

Alfa Romeo – 23,800 units sold

Genesis – 9,940 units sold

Alfa Romeo nearly doubled its sales in 2018 compared to the previous year which is encouraging for the Italian automaker as it tries to solidify its place in the US market. Inversely, Genesis sales declined by over 51% last year despite the Genesis G70 hitting the market and the praise it has been receiving left and right. Genesis needs an SUV in a very bad way.

A slight decrease in sales at Porsche (-2.30%) is also surprising although it wasn’t as bad as Jaguar’s 24.15% decrease in vehicles sold. Acura and Cadillac on the other hand both saw modest 2.80% and 8.55% increase in sales respectively. Land Rover and Volvo both continued their upward trend with 16.19% and 23.97% gains in vehicles sold.