According to Bloomberg, Mercedes-Benz can’t keep up with Audi and BMW in the global luxury car sales. The reason is because of a disjointed strategy in China, sluggish expansion of entry-level models and an outdated S-Class sedan. The gap between Mercedes-Benz and second-placed Audi has more than doubled within a year.
Through the nine months of 2012, Mercedes-Benz sold 964,900 cars and sport-utility vehicles worldwide, representing a 5 percent gain which wasn’t enough to keep up the pace with Audi which sold 132,600 more cars, up from 53,900 a year ago. The distance between Mercedes and first-place holder BMW rose by 41 percent to 145,000 vehicles, according to data from all three German carmakers.
Mercedes-Benz has been trailing since losing the top spot in the luxury-car segment to BMW in 2005. The Daimler unit’s sales will have advanced 19 percent through this year, compared with a 31 percent jump by BMW and a 70 percent surge by Audi over the past seven years, according to IHS Automotive estimates.
Meanwhile, in the first nine months of the year, Mercedes-Benz sold 5,221 more cars than BMW in the United States.
