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Luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz India on Tuesday said it has sold 11,789 units in the January-September period this year, a bit down as compared to 11,869 units in the same period last year.
However, the company still holds the numero uno position in the luxury cars segment in India till now and BMW Group India is the closest rival in the market. BMW has sold 7,915 cars (BMW+Mini) during the same period this year— a growth of 11 per cent as compared to January-September 2017.
For Mercedes-Benz, sales momentum in the first three quarters of this year were driven by mainstay products in the portfolio comprising the long wheelbase E-Class, the C-Class sedan, compact cars and SUVs, the company said on Tuesday.
Major challenges
Having said that the company also said it faced significant headwinds in terms of prevailing micro-economic factors such as rising interest rates, inflationary hikes, depreciation of the rupee and rising import costs which has slowed down the demand and may force the company to look at a price revision.
Additionally, a substantially high base of last year also posed significant sales challenges in the third quarter this year, it said.
“We continue our sales momentum and leadership in the Indian luxury car market as our customer-centric initiatives have been bearing fruits. We are satisfied with our sales performance despite experiencing the prevailing micro-economic headwinds and also a high base of 2017, which was a result of the strong built-up to the GST roll-out and also the onset of an earlier festive season, posing stiff sales challenges,” Michael Jopp, Vice-President, Sales and Marketing, Mercedes-Benz India, said.
Other carmakers
For BMW, all three brands — BMW, Mini and Motorrad — have posted strong growth and are demonstrating an affirmative outlook for the coming months, Vikram Pawah, Chairman – BMW Group India, said. Another German luxury car maker Audi is expected to share its sales numbers of the whole calendar year only in January. Its sales numbers was quite low as compared to that of Mercedes and BMW. It had sold 7,876 units in the 2017 calendar year, while Mercedes and BMW sold 15,330 units and 9,800 units respectively in January-December 2017.
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