Mercedes In May: Third Place
And finally in our series of Teutonic luxo-barges: the boys from Stuttgart. For long, Daimler used to look down their noses at the boorish upstarts from BMW, and even more so at – ach du mein Lieber – Audi.
Daimler better get used to looking up. Despite record sales in May, Mercedes-Benz takes the #3 step on the podium, both in May and YTD. The race is close, but Mercedes is getting a bit short-winded. In May, the starred brand delivered a total of 108,766 passenger vehicles to customers worldwide, up 7.3 percent. YTD, the tally stands 490,021 units, up 10.5 percent.
Joachim Schmidt, Executive VP of Sales and Marketing is hoping that the new M-Class, which debuts this week, will put some fire under the sales. “Beginning in fall, the pace of our growth will be further increased by the new M-Class, which will help us reach our goal of making 2011 the best year in our company’s history,” Schmidt said. “We want to sell more than 1.3 million Mercedes-Benz cars and smart fortwo overall.”
Both in Europe and in the U.S., Mercedes is treading water in the single digits. In China on the other hand, dealers can’t keep up with the demand. Sales in the Middle Kingdom were up 43.1 percent in May and 62 percent YTD. The smart did not make much impact. It stays at less than 10 percent of unit sales of the group. Maybach wasn’t mentioned. Running the spreadsheet, there is no difference between “Mercedes-Benz Cars” and the total of Mercedes-Benz and smart, so we didn’t even ask.
Mercedes-Benz Cars May 2011 Results
May ’11GrowthYTD ’11GrowthMercedes-Benz Cars118,9317.4%534,50810.3%Mercedes-Benz108,7667.3%490,02110.5%smart10,1658.6%44,4878.1%By marketWestern Europe50,355-1.6%219,7821.4%Germany24,647-0.2%96,2660.8%NAFTA22,3532.7%104,0855.2%U.S.A.18,8861.8%90,2745.7%Asia/Pacific26,50527.6%124,99535.5%Japan2,32515.5%11,274-4.9%China16,40143.1%75,89662.0%
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.
More by Bertel Schmitt
Comments
Join the conversation
While I admit to prejudice where Daimler is concerned, especially their treatment of Chrysler, the company has shot itself in the foot. It is one of the less innovative luxury auto makers, reactive, not pro-active, hasn't come out with anything groundbreaking or breathtaking for years.(or even very interesting) It's been involved in several bribery felonies, the engineers are so full of their own b.s. it's shameful, considering that a lot of their new product was (stolen) excuse me, co-developed with Chrysler, along with their cash. Look at Smart,Fail, Maybach, Fail, White Trucks, Fail, Chrysler, Fail. Who could possibly want their product, other than poseurs and wannabes? Daimler should stick to Mercedes-Benz cars and accept that they will never be a world player in any other arena, they just don't have the know-how, and even if they did, their overweening arrogance would do them in anyways. I'll cry no tears over Daimler's bad fortune, it's self-induced.
If there is one guy responsible for the so called demise of DB, it is Juergen Schrimp, no I did not misspell that South African Idiot's name, how he got to be so high for so long is a mystery. Got to remember, Daimler was on the leading edge of design in the 80's and even early 90's. Daimler design was always a couple of years ahead of the competition. One thing you must admit, neither DB, BMW or Audi change the looks of their cars, except to make them look more fluid, more up to date, not like some renaults or US car designs that change for the sake of change.