Increased competition from Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi will likely cause Lexus to miss out on its 2012 sales goal, the Japanese automaker revealed on Thursday.
After losing its U.S. sales crown to BMW in 2011, Lexus vowed to bounce back with 250,000 sales in 2012. However, Lexus conceded on Thursday that it is “slightly behind” that projected target.
“Toward the beginning of the year, we’d targeted sales of 250,000 units, but to be honest, that’s looking to be tough,” Kazuo Ohara, executive vice president for Lexus, told Bloomberg. “We just recently introduced the ES, so we may be able to catch up toward the end of the year.”
Through the first nine months of the year Lexus has sold 170,990 vehicles in the U.S., meaning the luxury automaker would have to average more than 26,000 sales during each of the final three months of the year to meet its 250,000 target. In September Lexus sold 20,386 vehicles.
Mercedes-Benz currently leads the U.S. luxury sales race with 191,618 deliveries, followed closely by BMW with 186,397 sales.
