BERLIN - BMW Brilliance Automotive, BMW's joint venture in China, "continued to play a major role" regarding an increase in sales in the third quarter (Q3), the German luxury car maker announced Wednesday.

BMW sales stood at around 613,000 units in Q3 of 2019, up 3.6 percent from the same period last year, according to the German car maker.

During the first nine months, BMW delivered more than 500,000 cars to its largest single market China, up 14 percent from the same period last year.

The total turnover of BMW's automotive segment, comprising the brands BMW, Mini as well as Rolls-Royce, increased by 9.0 percent to 23.0 billion euros ($25.5 billion) between July and September.

Operational profits (EBIT) of BMW's automotive segment rose by 62.9 percent to 1.5 billion euros ($1.67 billion) in the third quarter, resulting in an EBIT-margin of 6.6 percent.

"At the nine-month stage, we are well on our way to achieve our targets for the year as a whole," said Oliver Zipse, chief executive officer of BMW.

BMW is expecting an EBIT-margin between 4.5 and 6.5 percent for its automotive segment in 2019.