New Delhi: German premium carmaker Mercedes-Benz on Thursday rolled out the brand new locally-produced S-Class from its Chakan facility in Pune at a worth ranging from Rs 1.57 crore.
The firm had launched the imported (utterly constructed unit) model of its new technology flagship Sedan S class at a beginning worth of Rs 2.17 crore in June this yr.
Mercedes-Benz India has retailed more than 8,250 models of the S-Class to the Indian prospects, as per the corporate.
Mercedes-Benz stated that with the bettering state of affairs of the pandemic and elevated push for vaccination, the economic system will additional be secure and the companies will get again to the pre-pandemic stage, and that it continues to have a optimistic ‘gross sales’ outlook for the upcoming quarter.
The carmaker had on Wednesday posted one in every of its strongest quarterly performances, nearly doubling its gross sales to 4,101 models in July-September interval this yr over Q3CY20. Mercedes-Benz India Managing Director Martin Schwenk, nonetheless, stated the availability chain associated challenges could influence the volumes in December quarter.
“Overall, the stress on the worldwide provide state of affairs is sort of vital. Having stated that, I believe we’re nonetheless proud of the state of affairs right here in India for us, as a result of, no less than on the semiconductor aspect, now we have had provide for the automobiles we construct and to some extent might mitigate that. But it is true, one in every of our highest order banks, and that additionally causes buyer ready durations, anyplace between 4 to 16 weeks, in some circumstances even longer, which is sort of unlucky, and positively not one thing we wish to have. But it is attributed to the general world scarcity and misery in the availability chain,” Schwenk informed PTI.
He stated that increased import obligation and, to some extent, excessive GST charges in addition to cess makes an imported luxurious automobile costly and, due to this fact makes it tough for a buyer to buy one.
“At the same time, it pushes them obviously against our own profitability. So we have many markets which are much more profitable than India. And that essentially means also in terms of availability of vehicles, we might not always have priority, because our cars are not as profitable as they are in other markets for the manufacturer,” he stated.
“But the biggest challenge is that we cannot grow the market as we would want to have it and then it also limits us in further localisation and domestic production of vehicles. Because we need a reasonable and sizeable domestic market to develop and to produce our cars here domestically. So that’s one of the issues we are seeing,” Schwenk acknowledged.
Pointing out that the state of affairs is unlikely to alter, he stated, “what we are doing is we work with the framework and we work with very attractive products and localise to the level that is viable. And we try to offset this by having a big network in almost 50 cities having a presence so we try to offset some of the disadvantages.”
Mercedes-Benz India, at present has 13 regionally produced fashions, and it doesn’t have a plan to extend that considerably at this stage.
“With new merchandise to return, we’ll then introduce these automobiles. But at current our footprint of the 13 domestically produced fashions will stay no less than for the close to future,” he added.
With an awesome response to the CBU launch version of the S-Class, Mercedes-Benz is providing Indian prospects the regionally manufactured model, catering to the heightened demand for the flagship, the corporate stated on the launch.
The new S-Class is on the market in two variants — S 350 d, which is priced at Rs 1.57 crore and S 450 4MATIC at Rs 1.62 crore.
“The situation has massively improved. And I really believe we have the worst behind us and with the improving pandemic situation and a strong push to vaccination, I really think the economy will further be stable,” Schwenk acknowledged.
The highway to restoration has been a extremely swift one in comparison with the bumpy trip the corporate had final yr, he stated, including, “we have seen a strong rebound and a V-shaped recovery. In the month from June onwards, the sales have steadily grown.”
“Customer sentiments are already bullish. We have introduced 11 new products to the market so far during this year which have played a key role in exciting customers.
“The Class didn’t continue to remain the highest selling product for us. The GLC follows the Class closely, remaining the highest selling SUV in the portfolio. Similarly, we have also seen a strong demand for the newly launched GLA GLA and GLS SUVs, all of which remain in this waiting period,” he stated.
“We are in particular overwhelmed with the tremendous response to the New Generation S-Class and to cater to the increased demand, we are now commencing the local production ahead of our planning. We are confident the locally made S-Class will continue to retain its high loyalty from our discerning customers in India,” Schwenk stated.
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