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By Bloomberg

BMW AG, the world’s biggest maker of luxury cars, reported a 21 percent jump in first-quarter profit, beating analysts’ expectations, on stronger demand in the U.S. and Europe for models like X5 sport utility vehicle.

Earnings before interest and taxes increased to 2.52 billion euros ($2.83 billion) from 2.09 billion euros a year earlier, Munich-based BMW said Wednesday in a statement. That exceeded the 2.2 billion-euro average of 10 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Revenue jumped 15 percent to 20.9 billion euros.

BMW joins fellow German carmakers Volkswagen AG and Daimler AG in beating analysts’ first-quarter earnings estimates as more customers buy up-market vehicles, and Europe’s auto market revives. Industry executives are betting that growth in the region and the U.S., where sales have risen for 60 straight months, will make up for a slowing Chinese economy that has prompted BMW to reduce production and cut prices.

“Following a muted outlook at the start of the year, nearly all carmakers who have reported to date have increased their European end-market growth forecasts,” Arndt Ellinghorst, an analyst at Evercore ISI, said in a report before BMW released earnings. “Since the start of the year, we have been bullish on European market developments.”

BMW stuck to its forecast of “solid” growth in 2015 and record sales and pretax profit. First-quarter pretax profit rose 5.1 percent from a year earlier to 2.27 billion euros.

This year, BMW is introducing 15 models, including the seven-seat Gran Tourer wagon and a revamped version of the top- of-the-line 7-Series sedan, to counter efforts by VW’s Audi and Daimler’s Mercedes to overtake the company in sales by the end of the decade.