Mercedes Sales Up 20 Percent In February
Global sales of Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz car brand rose a whopping 20.3 percent in February compared to February 2011, Reuters says. A lot of this growth comes from a country already pronounced a basket case by some: China.
Mercedes sales in China rose 57.5 percent, they rose 31.4 percent in Japan, 21.6 percent in Germany’s and 16.9 percent in the United States. “We on track to meet our goal to achieve a new sales record in the first quarter,” Daimler said in a statement.
The surprising growth in China has two reasons:
- There is a disconnect between cheaper, smaller cars and more expensive, bigger cars. The bigger cars have growth, sales of smaller cars contract. This helps joint venture makers and hurts independent Chinese makers.
- The Chinese calendars confuses everything: The effect of the Chinese New Year had decimated January sales. February sales will be glorious for all manufacturers, because they compare with a February 2011 that had been decimated by the Chinese New Year. January and February sales should be ignored in China. Only the total of the first quarter has some significance.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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"and 16.9 percent in the United States." It's good to see the "too big to fail, millionaire job creators" are doing so well. I'm sure those fat, bail-out funded bonuses will trickle down any day now......any day now.
Not long ago, the largest volume Rolls Royce dealer in the world was in Beijing. Probably still true.
What on earth is that hideous photo doing here? That's not a true Mercedes but one of those "möchtegern" (don't know the term in English) Mercedes popular it seems only in California in the 1970s. Excalibur I believe the name was. They tried copying the famous SSK and SSKLs of the '30s and created terrible-looking monstrosities instead.