Mercedes-Benz Continues as Australia's Most Purchased Luxury Car Brand

MULGRAVE, AUSTRALIA – Jan 4, 2013: The release of the VFACTS National Sales Figures has again recognised Mercedes-Benz as the benchmark selling brand against its Luxury Car competitors for the fourth consecutive year.

Richard Emery, General Manager - Sales, Mercedes-Benz Cars said "we’ve had a ripper year! We had to struggle with stock shortages in our passenger car range yet we outsold our nearest Luxury brand competitor by more than 30 per cent in 2012. We brought our all new B-Class to market in April 2012, but despite a three month handicap we were again the most popular model in that segment. With the release of the B250, the new A-Class joining the market in March and the CLA-Class in late 2013 we are excited by the opportunities this segment offers to our customers.

The multi-award winning C-Class continues to impress regardless of all-new segment rivals arriving during 2012. “For the fifth consecutive year the C-Class has convincingly won its segment. In one of those interesting statistics the C-Class was actually the second biggest selling medium car in Australia regardless of price.

“The Large Car Over $70K Segment is just as fiercely competitive as its Medium segment sibling is , but for the fifth consecutive year the Mercedes-Benz brand was the clear choice of more buyers than any other brand. In the Sports Under $80K Segment our C-Class Coupe was a strong second beating some more fancied competitors by a country mile. We are very pleased that the E-Class Coupe/Cabriolet has for the third consecutive year been the consistent choice of more than one in five buyers - in the same segment the new SLK almost doubled its previous year’s sales and combined these two iconic vehicles delivered a 38 per cent market share.

"In our SUV's we continue to sell every ML-Class we can import and despite having a three month handicap by only going on sale in April 2012 we came within one week’s sales of our nearest competitor at years end in the SUV Large Over $70K segment. Our gentle giant the GL-Class has for the last five years been the vehicle of choice in the SUV Large Over $100K segment and when combined with our legendary G-Class we enjoyed a more than 50 per cent market share.

AMG vehicles continue to impress Australian performance car buyers with 2012 marking a record year in Australia.

“In 2012 we recorded our best ever year for AMG with 1233 sales. Our close relationship with AMG has seen the supply of C 63 AMG get close to meeting demand with 765 delivered in 2012. In 2013 with more than five new AMG vehicles to bring to market to provide our customers with the most complete and diverse performance brand of any manufacturer”, concluded Mr Emery.

2013 is an important year for Mercedes-Benz Australia with the introduction of two new models (A-Class and CLA-Class) the face lifted E-class with the company’s first BlueTEC Hybrid for Australia and the new GL-Class and S-Class.