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Mercedes sees accelerated growth in sales of top end cars in India: Report
Santosh Iyer, the vice president of sales and marketing, told news agency PTI on Sunday that Mercedes-Benz India sold 11,469 units in the January-September period this year, compared to 11,242 units sold in the whole of last year.
Mercedes-Benz India has said that it has seen accelerated growth in the sales of its top-end cars priced above ₹1 crore. Some of the cars of the German luxury automaker above ₹1 crore include the GLE 450, GLE400d, GLS, S-Class, S-Class Maybach, G-Class and AMG E53, among others. Santosh Iyer, the vice president of sales and marketing, told news agency PTI on Sunday that Mercedes-Benz India sold 11,469 units in the January-September period this year, compared to 11,242 units sold in the whole of last year.
"If I look at it internally, we are seeing 68 per cent growth in our TEV segment, which is our top-end luxury segment, compared to the overall growth of 28 per cent. Today, 30 percent of our sales are in top-end vehicles, cars above ₹1 crore price. So, that shows again the maturity of the Indian luxury car market," Iyer said.
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Earlier, the luxury car market was more driven by entry-level cars but today the mix is changing and the maturity is much higher, Iyer added.
As the cars above ₹1 crore of Mercedes accounted for 30% of total sales in India, Iyer said the demand "will be around more than 40 per cent" as the luxury automaker has an overall 7,000 units of pending orders in total across its product range.
On being asked if the share of the top-end vehicles in its total sales can grow further in 2022, the top Mercedes-India official said it would depend on supplies.
Recently, Mercedes recalled nearly 60,000 units of its sport utility vehicle (SUV), the GLS over an issue regarding the third-row seat.
The units were manufactured between 2018 and 2022. The recall campaign was initially raised for the North American market. In India, the GLS is available in a single variant- GLS 400d 4MATIC- for ₹1.16 crore.
(With PTI inputs)
