Baku, August 4 (AZERTAC). BMW beat its German premium carmaking rivals with another record profit margin in the first quarter, driven by rapidly rising sales, as the emerging markets’ newly affluent flocked to the group`s showrooms.

The German carmaker surprised markets with an operating margin in its automotive business of 11.9 per cent in the first three months of the year.

This marked the highest ever result and clearly outshone main rivals Audi and Daimler, which reported top margins of 10.6 per cent and 9.3 per cent in the first quarter, respectively.

The stellar result also exceeded market expectations and spurred a 1.7 per cent rise in BMW’s share price to €64.44 on Wednesday.

Max Warburton, analyst at Bernstein Research, said: “BMW is making profits beyond anything we could have imagined a few years ago, in spite of US and German sales still early in the recovery phase.

“BMW is absolutely at the vanguard of a ‘new era’ for German [carmaker] profitability,” he added.

Friedrich Eichiner, chief financial officer, put the group’s record profit down to buoyant demand for its top-of-the-range saloon models, which helped to boost overall revenues year on year by 28.9 per cent to €16.04bn ($23.8bn).

Mr Eichiner said: “The biggest impact came from our model program and from the 5 series in particular.”

Between January and March, the Bavarian carmaker more than doubled sales of its revamped 5er saloon to 85,423 cars, making the model market leader in its segment.

Demand was driven by all regions, but the main boost came once again from emerging markets such as China, India and Turkey, where sales shot up at high double-digit rates.

Sales in Asia rose by 53 per cent to more than 90,000 cars, almost a third more than BMW sold in its home market, Germany.

Customers in China bought 58,700 cars, an increase by 70 per cent that brought the market almost to level with BMW’s biggest sales regions, the US and Germany.