AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)10/07 Report--

Since 2020, affected by the decline of the car market and the COVID-19 epidemic, the global automobile market has fallen into the doldrums. Let many car companies that previously disclose sales data on a monthly basis change to quarterly reports to avoid the impact of performance volatility on investors. The same is true of Mercedes-Benz, the leader of luxury brands.

On the evening of October 6th, Mercedes-Benz officially released the latest sales figures for the third quarter, showing that Mercedes-Benz brand sold 613770 units worldwide, an increase of 3.9% over the same period last year. The cumulative global sales of the Mercedes-Benz brand in the first nine months was 1548859, with the annual growth rate slowing to 10.2 per cent.

Specifically, among the three major regions of Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America, Mercedes-Benz only achieved red sales in the Asia-Pacific region, of which the European market sold a total of 234000 vehicles in the third quarter. Year-on-year decline of 0.4%; full-year sales are still in a relatively large 20.9% decline. North America is also on a downward trend, with a year-on-year decline of nearly 10% in the third quarter, with cumulative sales of only 69600 vehicles, maintaining a downward trend of 13.9% for the whole year.

By contrast, only one of Mercedes-Benz's three major sales regions has achieved growth in the Asia-Pacific region. Thanks to the strong performance of the Chinese market, cumulative sales reached 288400 vehicles in the third quarter, an increase of 14% over the same period last year. Among them, the Chinese market accounts for nearly 80% of the sales in the region and nearly 40% of the global sales of Mercedes-Benz, which shows that the Chinese market not only occupies the absolute advantage in a certain field of Mercedes-Benz, but also has a great impact on the global market of Mercedes-Benz.

Sales figures show that a total of 223631 new Mercedes-Benz-branded cars were delivered to Chinese customers in the third quarter, up 23.4 per cent from a year earlier, while 569698 new cars were delivered to Chinese customers in the first nine months, up 8.3 per cent from a year earlier. Thanks to this, Mercedes-Benz's sales turned positive in the third quarter. This also makes the Chinese market the largest single market for the Mercedes-Benz brand for five consecutive years since 2015. According to the current growth rate of Mercedes-Benz in China, Mercedes-Benz is expected to exceed its annual sales in 2019 this year.

It is understood that in the first three quarters of this year, the car families of Mercedes-Benz brands, which are mainly C-Class, E-Class and S-Class cars, contributed about half of the brand's share in China, while SUV models, with GLC as the main force, achieved double-digit growth in the third quarter, with a particularly strong performance. The EQ electric technology brand is favored by more customers, and the sales of EQC pure electric SUV in China continue to rise.

In addition, Mercedes-Benz officially announced a new strategy for its passenger car business to achieve profitable growth in the luxury car market and is committed to continuing to lead in electric drive and automotive software. It includes future product plans for a number of sub-brands, as well as the product electrification process, in which officials revealed that Mercedes-AMG, Mercedes-Maybach and Mercedes-Benz G-Class will all usher in pure electric models. And Mercedes-Benz will also develop two pure electric vehicle platforms and an independent car software system, MB.OS.

According to the plan, Mercedes-Benz will also launch the GLA, GLB's fuel-to-electric version EQA and EQB next year. Among them, EQA, EQB, EQE and other electric models, together with EQC, will be put into production in Beijing Mercedes-Benz Shunyi and Yizhuang factories. By 2030, while electric models account for more than half of new car sales, Mercedes-Benz's investment in internal combustion engine models will decline rapidly, and the number of traditional internal combustion engine models will be reduced by 70%.

Throughout the performance of Mercedes-Benz this year, the Chinese market still plays an absolute role. It is under the effective control of the epidemic in the domestic market since the second quarter that the trend of counter-trend growth in the luxury market has boosted the Mercedes-Benz brand. This also reflects that with the continuation of the upgrading of domestic car consumption, sales of the luxury car market will still rise this year, and the Chinese market will continue to be an important strategic market for the Mercedes-Benz brand.

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