Stuttgart – With a new sales record, Mercedes-Benz started the year 2018 as successfully as it concluded the previous year. In 2017, Mercedes-Benz defended its position as the bestselling premium brand, and the Stuttgart-based company with the three-pointed star continued to be the number one in important markets also this January. In Germany, Great Britain, Portugal, South Korea, Australia, Taiwan, the USA, Canada and Brazil for example, Mercedes-Benz maintained its leading position as the premium brand with the most new registrations. January was highly successful also worldwide: With deliveries of 193,414 vehicles and growth of 8.4%, Mercedes-Benz made its best start to a year of all time, thus continuing seamlessly from its seventh consecutive record year.
“With more than 193,000 Mercedes-Benz cars sold in January, we achieved the most successful start to a year in the company’s history. And with the presentation of the new G-Class, we had an emotional start to the new year,” said Britta Seeger, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG responsible for Mercedes-Benz Cars Marketing & Sales. “I am delighted that we are setting standards not only with our unit sales, but also for example with the new smart configurator with real-time 3D car visualization. In this way, we are offering our customers an innovative platform upon which they can configure their future car.”
Mercedes-Benz unit sales by region and market
In the Europe region, 65,286 customers were happy to receive their new car with the star (+5.9%) – more than ever before in a January. In Germany, unit sales by Mercedes-Benz were 21.6% higher than in January 2017; a total of 21,907 customers took delivery of their new Mercedes-Benz – a new high in unit sales. New sales records were set also in January in Spain, Portugal, Poland and Sweden.
In the Asia-Pacific region, the Stuttgart-based company increased its unit sales compared with the prior-year month by 14.4% to a new high of 94,439 vehicles sold. Of that total, 68,425 Mercedes-Benz models went to China (+16.4%), where almost 10,000 more cars were sold in January than in the best month ever. Mercedes-Benz achieved new sales records for a January also in the markets South Korea, Taiwan, India and Malaysia.
In the NAFTA region, 29,452 vehicles from Mercedes-Benz were delivered to customers, which is slightly lower than the record for a January that was set last year (-1.8%). A total of 25,307 cars with the star were sold in the USA (-0.9%). Due to high demand for Mercedes-Benz vehicles in January, the brand with the three-pointed star was once again the best-selling premium brand in the USA.
Mercedes-Benz unit sales by model
Demand for the SUVs from Mercedes-Benz was as high as ever at the beginning of the year. With an increase of 9.9%, a new record was set of 71,409 units sold. The GLC, GLC Coupé and G-Class all set new records for unit sales. The new G-Class had its world premiere at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January. Mercedes-Benz has so far delivered a total of five million SUVs to its customers, including two million of the GLE and its predecessor, the M-Class.
The new S-Class Saloon achieved a 25.3% sales increase to 8,130 units in January. The S-Class Saloon was particularly popular in its biggest markets, China and the USA, achieving significant sales growth in both markets. The new S-Class Coupe and Cabriolet models were launched in Europe in January.
Last month, Mercedes-Benz delivered 33,063 of the E-Class Saloon and Estate models to our customers. This represents a 10.4% increase in unit sales and is a new record for a January. Mercedes-Benz has already sold more than 500,000 units of the new generation of the E-Class Saloon and Estate since April 2016.
smart
In January, 9,229 smart fortwo and smart forfour cars were delivered to customers around the world. The brand achieved strong growth of 30.3% in January in Germany, its biggest single market, primarily driven by the ongoing strong demand for electric models. Fans of the urban microcar in its domestic market were delighted by the launch of the new configurator on the smart website last month (smart.de), which sets new standards in the automotive industry. It is easy to operate and available to customers via smartphone, tablet or PC, and offers real-time 3D car visualization for the smart fortwo coupé. This feature will follow also for the smart cabrio and the smart forfour before the end of this quarter. In the coming months, the new smart configurator will become available in other European markets.
News from sales and service
Mercedes-Benz reached a new level of interaction with its customers at the end of last year with its intelligent, virtual assistant, “Ask Mercedes”. This free app serves to answer questions on the car’s displays, functions and operation. It uses artificial intelligence and combines a chatbot with augmented-reality functions. Questions can be typed into a smartphone display or asked using speech recognition. In the new E-, S- and the new A-Class, operating controls and displays can be scanned with a smartphone camera. Following the visual recognition of object, an explanation of the relevant function is given in multimedia form via video, text, pictures or link. Ask Mercedes was first launched as a pilot version in English in South Africa, India and Malaysia. A version limited to the augmented-reality functions has already gone online in the USA. Launch is planned for early this year in India, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia. A version in German will follow in 2018. The app is already in use in the E- and S-Class, it will be available in the new A-Class and other models will follow. A demonstration is available at the following website:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI0X_huTorE.
The app for the Mercedes me Adapter is also very popular. Mercedes-Benz is the first automobile manufacturer to offer customers the possibility to retrofit connectivity features in their cars using this adapter. The Mercedes me Adapter is already available in 22 countries for 24 Mercedes-Benz model series (in some cases going back to 2002), and has already been installed in more than 100,000 vehicles. Since the end of last year, the related app has offered customers new functions such as “Find a parking space” and “Car health monitor,” which displays warning messages from the car in the app. Other popular functions include the route list, the cockpit view with live data from the car, and the filling-station finder showing current fuel prices.
Not only the cars from Mercedes-Benz are well connected, but also the company with its customers and other interested persons. With nearly 100 million followers on all social-media channels, Mercedes-Benz has a broad presence in the social networks. The most important channel is Instagram with more than 300 million interactions in 2017. This means that Mercedes-Benz is by far the brand with the most likes and comments on Instagram.