Mercedes Benz denies losing out to BMW in India
Friday, 22 January 2010
MUMBAI, Jan 21 (Economic Times): Close on the heels of the Auto Expo in New Delhi, Mercedes Benz introduced two new engine variants of their premium E-Class sedan Wednesday.
Speaking to TOI, Wilfried Aulbur, MD and CEO of Mercedes-Benz India, dismissed reports that the company was losing out its luxe tag to BMW.
BMW India sped ahead to overtake Mercedes Benz India in terms of sales, for the first time ever, during 2009. For the 12-month period ended December, BMW sold 3,619 luxury cars in the country, as compared to the 3,247 luxury units that Mercedes Benz sold.
Terming the competitor's lead a "product cycle issue", he said: "We had only limited completely knocked down kits of the E-Class, which sold faster than we thought. We sold 686 kits and the demand was around 1,000 and we sold 1,600 cars of the C-Class," he said. The firm imports the kits and assembles them at its Pune unit.
Mercedes-Benz is intent on reclaiming the numero uno spot in the Indian luxury car market with sales in excess of 4,000 units this year.
Mercedes ended 2009 with 38 per cent of the pie against BMW's 40 per cent with the third German luxury carmaker Audi claiming the rest. In December 2009, Merc raced ahead of the pack with sales of 334 units against 280 units recorded by BMW.
Though the official line from Mercedes-Benz was a guarded one with company director (sales & marketing) Debashish Mitra committing to only a double digit growth, sources said the internal sales target ranged between 40-50 per cent against last year when sales had bottomed out due to the economic slowdown in the first quarter and non-availability of its bread-and-butter EClass vehicle in the next quarter. The sales chart reads 3,250 units in 2007, 3,625 units in 2008 and 2,492 units in 2009.
"With an expanded range of E-Class in four engine and two styling variants available from the very start of the year, we should record a good growth this year. By a thumb rule, the iconic model accounts for 40% of the sales in volume terms," Mitra said at the launch of the E-Class Elegance line with petrol (E250 V6) and diesel (E250).
Speaking to TOI, Wilfried Aulbur, MD and CEO of Mercedes-Benz India, dismissed reports that the company was losing out its luxe tag to BMW.
BMW India sped ahead to overtake Mercedes Benz India in terms of sales, for the first time ever, during 2009. For the 12-month period ended December, BMW sold 3,619 luxury cars in the country, as compared to the 3,247 luxury units that Mercedes Benz sold.
Terming the competitor's lead a "product cycle issue", he said: "We had only limited completely knocked down kits of the E-Class, which sold faster than we thought. We sold 686 kits and the demand was around 1,000 and we sold 1,600 cars of the C-Class," he said. The firm imports the kits and assembles them at its Pune unit.
Mercedes-Benz is intent on reclaiming the numero uno spot in the Indian luxury car market with sales in excess of 4,000 units this year.
Mercedes ended 2009 with 38 per cent of the pie against BMW's 40 per cent with the third German luxury carmaker Audi claiming the rest. In December 2009, Merc raced ahead of the pack with sales of 334 units against 280 units recorded by BMW.
Though the official line from Mercedes-Benz was a guarded one with company director (sales & marketing) Debashish Mitra committing to only a double digit growth, sources said the internal sales target ranged between 40-50 per cent against last year when sales had bottomed out due to the economic slowdown in the first quarter and non-availability of its bread-and-butter EClass vehicle in the next quarter. The sales chart reads 3,250 units in 2007, 3,625 units in 2008 and 2,492 units in 2009.
"With an expanded range of E-Class in four engine and two styling variants available from the very start of the year, we should record a good growth this year. By a thumb rule, the iconic model accounts for 40% of the sales in volume terms," Mitra said at the launch of the E-Class Elegance line with petrol (E250 V6) and diesel (E250).