German top-of-the-range carmaker BMW said on Tuesday, March 13 it was confident it would be able to achieve record sales and earnings again this year following a bumper year in 2011.

"The BMW group is confident about the current financial year after a record year in 2011," AFP quoted chief executive Norbert Reithofer as saying.

"We are targeting new highs in sales volume and pre-tax earnings for 2012."

As already reported last week, BMW booked net profit of 4.907 billion euros ($6.5 billion) in 2011, an increase of 51.3 percent year-on-year, and pre-tax profit rose by 52.1 percent to 7.383 billion euros.

Unit (Berlin: UN7.BE - news) sales were up 14.2 percent at 1.669 million vehicles, pushing up revenues by 13.8 percent to 68.821 billion euros.