BENGALURU: Luxury car maker Mercedes Benz India has got about 80% sales of last year in the first five months of this fiscal and going by the trend, the company expects a strong double-digit growth this time, Martin Schwenk, its managing director and CEO, said.
“The recovery has been V-shaped and it has been stronger this year than last. Demand for all our products is high. In fact, sales in July and August were higher than pre-Covid levels,” he told TOI.
The German car maker sold 1,070 units last month and led the luxury car pack in India, up from 497 units in the same period last year. The next in line was BMW and Jaguar Land Rover.
That demand – it says that whatever it makes is sold leading to low inventory levels – along with supply chain issues globally has led to an increased waiting period of up to 8-16 weeks for its cars in India, which is a challenge. That includes cars like its GLA, GLC and the E-Class ones.
“We are all fighting the supply situation. While production is back to normal, the supply chain constraint in sea freight, air freight has put us under stress along with the chipset problem, though that is not as severe for us. Some parts do not arrive on time and this has led to a higher waiting time on quite a few new products which is not good. We have not reduced production but are catching up and working overtime to ensure we supply the cars quickly.”
The company announced earlier this year it was ditching its traditional dealership model and wanted to sell cars directly to passengers from the fourth quarter.
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