Mercedes-Benz increases unit sales for 9th year in a row

German manufacturer Daimler delivered 2,339,562 Mercedes-Benz cars in 2019, a year-on-year increase of 1.3 percent, making it the highest annual sales volume in the company's history, the company announced on Thursday.

"The ninth consecutive record year underscores once more the strong demand for Mercedes-Benz vehicles, even amidst far-reaching changes in the mobility landscape," said Ola Kaellenius, chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz AG.

In the last three months of 2019, Mercedes-Benz sold more than 600,000 passenger cars and thus completed the best quarter ever in terms of sales.

Mercedes-Benz was able to surpass the "high prior-year level" in its main markets of China, Germany and the United States. China, the largest market for Mercedes-Benz, remained the "main growth driver," according to Daimler.

Sales in China increased by 6.2 percent with 693,443 Mercedes-Benz cars handed over to customers in 2019, the company said.

Daimler stressed that its localization strategy was one of the key success factors in China. More than three-quarters of Mercedes-Benz vehicles sold in China had already come directly from local production.

In its home market Germany, Mercedes-Benz increased its sales by 4.8 percent compared to the previous year and delivered a total of 318,353 vehicles, especially thanks to growing compact car and sport utility vehicle (SUV) sales.

In 2019, every third vehicle sold by Mercedes-Benz globally was an SUV and every fourth was a compact car.

Although global SUV sales were 4.5 percent lower than in 2018, with around 783,700 units sold, SUVs remained the highest-volume segment at Mercedes-Benz in 2019. In contrast, sales of compact cars rose by 9.5 percent to around 667,000 units delivered.

"2019 was a year of great challenges for the automotive industry. The next two years will also be characterized more than ever by the transformation of our industry," Kaellenius said.