Rolls-Royce Rides Ongoing Luxury Demand to Sales Record in 2022

LONDON—Rolls-Royce on Monday reported record sales Last year’s luxury cars were sold at an average of $534,000, despite a decline in Chinese demand and a price tag of $534,000.

The British carmaker, which began as Rolls-Royce in Manchester, England nearly 120 years ago and is now owned by Germany’s BMW, said that it sold 6,021 cars in 2022, up from 5,586 in 2021, which was also a record year.

Rolls-Royce’s sales were led by the Americas, with the U.S. remaining its top market with around 35 percent of sales. In China, the carmaker’s second-largest market, coronavirus-related lockdowns led to a “single-digit drop” Sales

But CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös said in an online presentation that this decrease was offset by growth in other markets.

“Our order book stretches far into 2023 for all models,” Müller-Ötvös said. “We haven’t seen any slowdown in orders.”

Rolls-Royce stated that pre-orders of its fully-electric Spectre (due to go on sale in 2023) had exceeded all its expectations.

The CEO Told reporters that the growth anticipated for 2023 came despite Rolls-Royce halting sales in Russia, which typically accounted for 250–300 units per year, in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine last February.

Müller-Ötvös said the luxury brand’s bespoke, customized approach had [led] to “ever more imaginative, personal and technically demanding” Customers can place orders.

($1 = 0.9370 euros)

Nick Carey