Mercedes-Benz India: German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz on Thursday sounded confident of posting a double-digit growth this calendar year and said it is expecting the demand to remain good in the coming festive season on the lines of last year. Mercedes-Benz India Managing Director and CEO Santosh Iyer said that the company is seeing growth in its electric vehicle portfolio also and it will come out with the electric version of Maybach in September this year.
“We grew 9 per cent in the first half of 2024. Of course, quarter two is low seasonality and this year it was even low considering elections. But when we look at the third quarter it is again showing a good amount of bookings. The market is there. We are confident of a double-digit growth to end the year. And in that sense it should be our best year again,” Iyer said.
He said that the top-end segment grew 12 per cent against an overall 9 per cent growth in HI 2024, adding that the company’s core luxury segment which includes the E-class, C-class GLC and GLE, accounts for 60 per cent of the overall portfolio in India. He said, “Mercedes-Benz will launch the EQS Maybach SUV in India on September 5.”
“We will have our new E-class coming in. So we will also see a lot of momentum in our core luxury segment as well. So overall, we are quite optimistic. We would like to continue our dominance in the top-end segment,” Iyer said. Mercedes-Benz India has 16 cars in its top-end portfolio.
“If I look at the current month (August), it has started off quite well,” he said. Stating that the total passenger vehicle sales grew 14 per cent year-on-year in July, Iyer said, “I think the momentum is coming back after the short lull (due to the election period).