A recent report by Polk Automotive (now IHS) reveals that BMW may not be the King of the luxury car world. The data compiled from vehicle registrations, part of automotive market research by Polk shows Lexus on top, followed by Mercedes and BMW at third spot!
Based on data reported by BMW, they took the crown with 346,023 units sold, which is 1,422 more than Lexus and 2,935 more than Mercedes-Benz.
| Position | Automaker | Annual Sales 2015 |
| 1 | BMW | 346,023 |
| 2 | Lexus | 344,601 |
| 3 | Mercedes-Benz | 343,087 |
However, vehicle registration data released by Polk reveals a whole different story.
| Position | Automaker | Vehicle Registrations 2015 |
| 1 | Lexus | 340,392 |
| 2 | Mercedes-Benz | 337,288 |
| 3 | BMW | 335,259 |
As seen from the tables above, the discrepancy that arises from the data by Polk Automotive affects all three automakers. Possible reasons could be, at times vehicle registrations take longer in some states, so a car bought in 2015 might get registered in 2016. The same logic applies to previous year sales, where 2014 sales may count towards 2015 vehicle registrations.
Given that registration data will almost always be different from units sold, we cannot surely denote the true King of the luxury car world.