BMW just fell behind Mercedes and Audi in sales

Mercedes-Benz sold more than 150,000 luxury cars worldwide in January.

This represents a 20% jump in sales over the same month in 2015.

"We continued the positive development of record year 2015 in January, and started the new year successfully," Mercedes-Benz Cars marketing and sales boss Ola Källenius said in a statement.

In the process, the three-pointed star overtook previous luxury sales king BMW which reported sales of 134,000 cars over the same period - an increase of 7.5%.

In fact, BMW was also overtaken by Audi which delivered more than 143,000 cars last month - an increase of 4%.

"We started the new year at a good pace and delivered more cars than ever before in a January," Audi sales chief Dietmar Voggenreiter said in a statement.

"We have gained new customers in the Americas, Europe and Asia. That shows how balanced our growth strategy is."

Mercedes' stellar January follows up on the company's resurgent 2015 which saw the company deliver more than 1.87 million cars world wide - a 13.4% increase over 2014.

However, the Stuttgart-based luxury brand still lagged behind BMW, which moved nearly 1.91 million cars last year.

Audi delivered 1.8 million cars worldwide in 2015.

Mercedes' recent success comes as the company has revamped its lineup with a heavy focus on offering customers wider selection of crossover SUVs and entry-level models. The result is increased sales in a high-growth, high-profit margin segment of the market and the addition of new buyers into the brand ladder.

With that said, BMW is content with the level of growth the company has exhibited in an unstable global market.

"We are pleased to see the sustainable levels of growth we achieved in 2015 continuing into this year," BMW AG's head of sales, Dr Ian Robertson said in a statement. "Despite many markets showing continuing volatility, we remain optimistic that this positive trend will continue through 2016, our company's centenary year."