Business
Updated : Mar 19, 2018, 04:33 AM IST
German luxury car maker Mercedes Benz is aiming to cross the 10,000 units sales mark in the current calender year in the Indian market.
Without giving any numbers, the company said it is looking at a double-digit growth this year too, on the back of new launches and strong demand for certain existing products.
Of the 10 new products the luxury carmaker has lined up for this year, it launched its fourth product on Tuesday – the GL 63 AMG, priced at Rs 1.66 crore (ex showroom Mumbai).
Last year, Audi India, the biggest luxury carmaker in India, crossed the 10,000 mark for the first time as it closed the calender 2013 with 10,002 units, while Mercedes Benz India, which witnessed its highest yearon-year growth in the industry last year at 32%, sold 9,003 units.
The third-largest player BMW India, on the other hand, declined 22% to 7,327 units despite launches like 1-series.
Even though the industry sees the segment remaining subdued in 2014 due to elections, companies like Mercedes and Audi are confident of crossing 10,000 units in sales.
"Our E-Class and C-Class are the best selling models currently, and the compact models like A-Class and B-Class are contributing almost 20% to our sales now. We are also confident of the potential of our upcoming launches like CLA and GLA, which will further add volumes," said Eberhard Kern, MD of Mercedes Benz India.
Its existing models like ML, GL and S-Class currently have a waiting period of about three months, Kern said.
The company said that it is almost done with doubling the capacity of its Chakan plant from 10,000 units a year to 20,000 units.
Mercedes Benz, which currently assembles E-Class, C-Class, GL-Class, M-Class and S-Class at its India plant, is looking at assembling more models her. Kern however, did not give any details and timeline of the upcoming models to be assembled.
The industry sold around 32,000 units of luxury cars in 2013 as compared with 28,000 units sold in 2012.