Comments
India has emerged as the fastest-growing market for Mercedes Benz in April with the German luxury car-maker’s local unit reporting nearly 50 per cent rise in sales during the month.
Mercedes Benz India’s sales rose 49.1 per cent in April and 40 per cent in the January-March quarter.
The high growth is not entirely on the back of its portfolio of small cars, the company’s MD and CEO, Eberhard Kern, said.
“The compact cars accounted for 35-40 per cent of our sales, but our best selling models are the C, E and ML.” The S-Class and ML-Class continue to be wait-listed, he added.
Localisation driveThe battle for the number one spot in the Indian car luxury market is a keenly watched affair and the three German auto-makers present in the category — Mercedes, Audi and BMW — have resorted to several measures to grow their sales in India, including localisation.
With the roll-out of the locally built C 220 CDI last week, Mercedeshas touched the maximum in its localisation drive.
“The C 220 is localised to 60 per cent and we have reached the limit,” Kern said. Further localisation would only be possible with local manufacturing which would only be viable at 60,000 units annually. “This is very far away,” he quipped.
The local assembly has shaved nearly ₹3 lakh off the sale price of the Avantgarde version and ₹2 lakh for the Style version.
Earlier, Mercedes Benz India launched its fifth AMG performance centre in India at Pune. This is the company’s 413th such centre across the world.
At the Centre, customers can see and experience all models of the company’s high performance brand. Currently, seven of a global portfolio of 37 AMG products are offered in India.
“Sales of AMG models grew threefold during 2014, and we expect it to grow by 50 per cent over the last year in 2015,” Kern says.
Globally, AMG sales rose 50 per cent in 2014 to nearly 48,000 units.
The company plans to introduce the AMG GT, launched in world markets a couple of months ago, in India later this year.
AMG cars range from ₹70 lakh to ₹2 crore.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.