BMW Group adds new regional responsibilities to Singapore office

Evaluating to add pre-development research and design functions
SINGAPORE - The BMW Group reaffirms its presence in Singapore by adding
new regional responsibilities to its regional corporate office, BMW
Asia Pte Ltd. As part of the BMW Group's Asian strategy, the BMW Asia
Pte Ltd office will remain in Singapore while the company expands its
presence in Asia, with new forays in China and Malaysia. "Today
we would like to announce that we will add regional responsibilities to
BMW Asia in Singapore. These new functions include corporate affairs,
financial services, purchasing, direct sales and special vehicles,
merchandising and lifestyle sales, motorcycles, MINI and Rolls-Royce.
Also we are currently evaluating to add pre-development research and
even design functions to the operations here in Singapore", said
Mr Lüder Paysen, Senior Vice President, BMW Group sales division
(Asia-Pacific, Middle East, East Europe, Africa and Caribbean markets).
Since January 1st 2003, the brand Rolls-Royce has been added to the BMW
Group, which now presents itself with three brands: MINI, BMW and
Rolls-Royce. "We have been successfully driving our regional
business from BMW Asia Pte Ltd since 1985, therefore this central role
of the office remains and will in fact be enhanced by the new regional
staff that are based here. Singapore with its efficient transport and
communications infrastructure, central location and stability, remains
the ideal place for BMW Asia Pte Ltd", said Mr Paysen. The BMW
Asia Pte Ltd office will also continue in its role to support BMW Group
importers in the Asia-Pacific and identify future markets. Over the last
8 years, BMW Asia Pte Ltd was instrumental in helping to identify,
establish and support new BMW sales subsidiaries in South Korea,
Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. The announcement of a
new subsidiary, BMW Malaysia Sdn Bhd, was made in Kuala Lumpur
yesterday. It is a 51:49 joint venture between the BMW Group and Sime
Darby Group respectively. In addition, the BMW Group is also setting up
a regional IT center in Malaysia and will next year re-locate its parts
distribution centre from Singapore to Malaysia. "This move
reflects the continuing expansion of the BMW Group in Asia by setting
up a new operation in Malaysia, while at same time building up new
regional functions in its existing office in Singapore", said Mr
Paysen. He added that the BMW Group's strategy has allowed the company
grow over proportionally in Asia. "A 3% growth for BMW and an
impressive 66% growth for MINI compared to last year, shows how strong
our organization has been developed over the past years. Especially I
would like to highlight the success of our new top model - the 7
Series- selling 5,800 units in the first half of the year only in Asia,
this is an increase of 83%", Mr Paysen said. Background on BMW
Group in Asia BMW Group sales in Asia reached a new record last year
with 78,527 cars, an increase of 28.4%. BMW cars contributed 67,888
units while 10,639 MINI cars were delivered to customers. These figures
make the BMW Group the leading premium car maker in Asia and the BMW
brand, the number one brand in its segment of luxury cars. In an
annual survey conducted by the Far Eastern Economic Review, the
magazine?s readers found that BMW offered the highest quality of
services and products. This is the 4th time running that BMW has won
this coveted award. In addition, BMW was ranked 6th in a list of the
top multi-national companies in Asia, the highest-ranked premium car
company. Since 1981 when BMW Group was the first European car maker to
establish a subsidiary in Japan, the company began to build up a
network of its own subsidiaries in Korea, Thailand (which includes a
plant), Indonesia and the Philippines. In addition, the BMW Group also
established a representative office in China in 1994 and a regional
office in Singapore since 1985.