Dubai: The Dubai-based regional Mercedes-Benz sales subsidiary, responsible for Middle East and Levant countries, said on Wednesday it is seeing a rising trend in luxury passenger car and SUV sales based on its retail figures of last month. Deliveries were up 6 per cent compared to June 2009, it said. In total, Mercedes-Benz outlets delivered 1,317 passenger cars and SUVs compared to 1,258 in the same month last year.
"Our most popular cars are the E-Class and C-class," Mercedes-Benz Middle East spokesman Julian Millward-Hopkins told Gulf News, referring to the middle and upper-middle class model range of the German manufacturer.
He said that year to date deliveries are up five per cent compared to 2009, mostly thanks to increased sales of these segment-leading models. The E-Class also added a new Business version last month which, priced at $73,000, "is attracting a lot of interest."
Millward-Hopkins also said that the company's SUV sales in the region are "very reasonable." Frank Bernthaler, Director, Sales and Marketing for Mercedes-Benz Cars Middle East and Levant, added that SUV deliveries "looked positive" and that he was convinced "that Mercedes-Benz could increase its market share with the introduction of the grand editions of the seven-seater GL and ML Classes in the next three months."
The company did not provide figures for its UAE sales alone.
Millward-Hopkins said that he does not expect an impact on limousine and SUV sales in the UAE due to rising petrol prices. "There has been a significant increase in fuel prices of about 35 per cent in the last month," he said. "But petrol is still relatively inexpensive compared to Europe and the US. So I don't think that our customers will start worrying about the costs of petrol."
Mercedes-Benz, whose diesel-engine cars sell well in Europe and increasingly in the US, does not offer diesel-powered passenger cars in the UAE. One reason is that diesel here is mainly used for trucks and lorries and does not reach the cleanliness needed for high-tech diesel limousine engines, the company says.
