OREANDA-NEWS. August 9, 2012. “Despite many upcoming model changes and difficult market conditions in Southern Europe, for the year to date we continue on a path of growth and are well on track to setting a new sales record in 2012 that will get a special boost by our new A-Class, which goes on sale in September.”

Mercedes-Benz remains on course for record sales. Since the beginning of the year, the brand delivered a total of 750,251 units to customers and therefore managed to increase sales by 5.5% compared to the same period last year. In July alone, 97,327 vehicles were sold (p.y. 100,391 u.).

In the Mercedes-Benz Cars division, too, more vehicles were sold in the first seven months of the year than ever before. Deliveries of the Mercedes-Benz, smart and Maybach brands rose by 5.1% to 813,966 vehicles from January to July. Last month's sales totaled 105,449 units (p.y. 108,885 u.).

Dr. Joachim Schmidt, Executive Vice President Sales and Marketing, Mercedes-Benz Cars: “Despite many upcoming model changes and difficult market conditions in Southern Europe, for the year to date we continue on a path of growth and are well on track to setting a new sales record in 2012 that will get a special boost by our new A-Class, which goes on sale in September.” The response to the new A-Class is excellent with well over 40,000 posted orders since it was released for sale. Dr. Schmidt adds: “The gradual introduction of additional new models like the CLS Shooting Brake and the GL-Class will give further momentum to our sales.”

Mercedes-Benz sales in the countries of the NAFTA region have reached a new record level since the beginning of the year. In Canada, sales rose by 10.1% from January through July; in Mexico, by even more than a quarter (+26.0%). In the same period, 147,905 vehicles (+13.8%) were sold in the U.S. With 19,311 vehicles delivered (+1.6%) in July, Mercedes-Benz continues to rank first among the best-selling premium brands in the U.S. market in 2012.

With growth rates of 24.5% in Russia and 8.7% in South Korea, last month’s sales and sales for the year to date reached a new record high. Mercedes-Benz also reported a similarly dynamic trend in Japan, which saw a 16.8% sales increase last month.

In China (incl. Hong Kong), in the year to date, sales rose by 6.7% to a new record high of 113,519 units. Due to the phasing out of the first generation B-Class and pending availability of the new model, the B-Class was not available in China in July. Nevertheless, with 14,128 vehicles, sales were nearly on last year’s level in the past month (p.y. 14,248). The new B-Class will come to the Chinese market late August.

In Germany, Mercedes-Benz was the premium brand with the highest number of new vehicle registrations from January to July. In the domestic market the year-to-date Mercedes-Benz sales of 149,016 units are running 2.0% ahead of previous year’s level despite the impending model change and the resulting very limited availability of the high-volume A-Class.

The limited availability of the discontinued model was also felt in the strongly shrinking Western European market (without Germany). Nevertheless, from January through July Mercedes-Benz sales in the region totaled 176,601 units, slightly above the previous year’s level (p.y. 176,973 u.). Mercedes-Benz performed exceptionally well in July in Switzerland (+20.0%) and in France (+7.6%).

A sales record was set for the new B-Class in the first half of the year, and demand continues to run high at the start of the third quarter. In July, compared with the previous year the model series more than doubled its sales (12,142 u.; +108.8%) to post another new record.

Since the beginning of the year, there is also continued, very strong demand for the vehicles from the C-Class segment, where sales rose by 11.9% from January through July. Over the same period, sales in the S-Class segment increased by 4.6%.

Especially owing to the strong demand in China, already 41,507 vehicles of the S-Class sedan were delivered to customers worldwide in the year to date. Thus, the brand’s flagship model was the top-selling vehicle in its segment during the past seven months. In addition, last month the S-Class celebrated a special anniversary with more than 500,000 models of the current series manufactured to date, more than ever before in the same period of time. The new SL is generating an outstanding response in the S-Class segment. Driven, among other things, by high demand in the U.S., Roadster sales have doubled since the start of the year (+105.2%), and more than quadrupled in July (+323.4%).

Mercedes-Benz SUVs continue to generate an outstanding response from buyers and posted new record sales in July and in the year to date with strong growth of more than a quarter in the past month alone (+25.8%). The main drivers of this trend were the new M-Class (+57.7%) and the new generation of the GLK (+18.5%). In the first month after its market launch the GLK set a new sales record for July. The new generation of the G-Class has also been outstandingly well received by customers. The entire production of the year 2012 is already taken up by orders.

smart is still on track to maintaining its good sales level from last year. With 63,715 units sold since the beginning of the year, the sales of the city runabout are constant at last year’s level (+0.7%). In July, the innovative two-seater was again especially popular mainly in the U.S. (+138.5%) and in China (incl. Hong Kong) (+23.9%).