This is going to shock you: BMW’s best-selling model last year was the R 1300 GS/GS Adventure. That’s according to numbers the manufacturer released recently.
In total, BMW Motorrad sold 202,563 motorcycles worldwide in 2025. Some 32,555 of them were R 1300 GS models, while 33,570 of them were R 1300 GS Adventure models. In other words, the R 1300 GS platform represents more than 32 percent of BMW’s sales.
Although BMW’s next best seller was the S 1000 RR (11,643 units sold), its middleweights represented another sizable chunk of sales. A media release from BMW doesn’t offer model-by-model breakdown, but does say that the F 900 R, F 900 GS, F 900 GS Adventure, F 800 GS, and F 900 XR clocked up a combined sales total of 41,166 units – about 20 percent of BMW’s 2025 sales.
Other fun facts to pull from BMW’s very dry media release is the fact that Europe accounted for more than half of sales. Germany, France, and Italy are the manufacturer’s strongest markets worldwide.
“In a demanding market environment we played to our strengths and performed better than ever in many markets and segments,” BMW Motorrad CEO Markus Flasch is quoted in the media release as saying. “We owe this leading position to our commitment to technological leadership, a consistent strategic focus on brand strength and, not least, an attractive product offering.”
The second part of that quote is babble; I’m not entirely sure what it means.
But the “demanding market environment” to which Flasch refers is the fact that, broadly speaking, there has been a global decline of interest in bikes with a capacity greater than 500cc.
To that end, BMW is very clearly looking forward to finally releasing the F 450 GS that it first revealed back in 2024. In its media release, it says that it “performed solidly in the sub‑500 cc segment” but only mentions the C 400 GT and C 400 X scooters, not the G 310 GS or G 310 R. One wonders how long those will last once the 450 platform is up and running.
BMW also said it had to battle uphill against “volatile conditions, intense price competition, regulatory constraints, and new customs rules.” That last challenge is something you’ll hear manufacturers grumbling about a lot these days.
Nonetheless, according to BMW, “several markets recorded their best results ever, including Italy, Spain, Japan, Australia, Portugal, Canada, Malaysia, and the Netherlands.”
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