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Mercedes has just put its first-quarter numbers on the table, and the picture is as polished as ever on the surface. Look a little closer, though, and the gaps are almost more revealing than the gains. The brand is happy to talk about what’s rising. It is far less eager to discuss what isn’t.
In the United States, Mercedes passenger car retail sales slipped about 3 percent in the first quarter to roughly 70,000 units. The problem is that sorting out the real story has become harder than it should be. Mercedes no longer publishes clean model-by-model figures, choosing instead to bundle results together and highlight only the numbers it prefers to showcase. That makes the whole exercise feel a bit like peering through frosted glass.
Still, the highlights are easy enough to spot. Mercedes says it delivered a “strong performance despite significant market headwinds,” and the strongest momentum came from the high-margin end of the range. Maybach sales jumped 22 percent, the G-Class rose 16 percent, and the SL posted a sharp 47 percent gain. The GLC and GLE also moved higher, climbing 17 percent and 19 percent respectively.
One name, however, was treated very differently.
Mercedes said customer interest in the new CLA is building across the U.S., but it stopped well short of giving a number. In corporate language, that usually means the launch has not yet become the breakout the brand wants it to be. Mercedes did hint that wider availability should help in the second quarter, after prioritizing European deliveries first.
The real silence was around the electric lineup. There was no mention at all of the EQE, EQE SUV, EQS, or EQS SUV. In car-speak, that kind of omission speaks volumes. If those models were flying out of showrooms, Mercedes would have said so.
Van sales were down too, falling 6 percent to around 8,500 units in the U.S. Mercedes kept the wording as corporate as possible, saying it remains focused on delivering “versatile, premium van solutions” for changing business needs. The plain-English version? A softer quarter, and not much excitement to dress it up.
Globally, the first quarter was also down 6 percent for Mercedes-Benz Cars, which came to about 419,400 units. Even so, electric vehicles helped soften the blow. BEV sales rose 9 percent to 44,300 units, with the company pointing to strong demand for its newer EV offerings.
Mercedes clearly believes the next wave will come from fresher products, not the old guard.
That confidence centers heavily on the electric GLC. Mercedes says the new model generated more orders in its first three months than any other electric vehicle in the company’s history. The CLA EV, GLB EV, and GLC EV are also said to be booked well into the second half of the year. On top of that, the facelifted S-Class is reportedly drawing stronger-than-expected interest in Europe, while updated versions of the GLE and GLS should provide an added lift later on.
There was one especially confusing detail in Mercedes’ global release: the company said U.S. sales were up 20 percent to 81,100 units. That figure does not match the 70,000 retail sales number mentioned earlier, but the explanation appears to be simple enough. One is a retail figure, the other a broader total. Even so, the way Mercedes presents its data makes it harder than necessary to follow the thread.
Then comes China, where the brand is having a much rougher time. Sales in the region dropped 27 percent to around 111,600 units. That is a serious decline, and it continues to weigh heavily on the global picture. Europe, by contrast, was a relative bright spot with sales up 7 percent to 158,400 units, including a 9 percent rise in Germany. North America also improved, climbing 16 percent, while the rest of the world slipped 14 percent.
Mercedes Vans followed a similar path on the global side, with sales down 3 percent to about 80,300 units. Electric vans grew 29 percent, but only reached 6,100 units, which shows both promise and scale still to come.
The full quarter adds up to a familiar Mercedes story right now: luxury and top-end models are carrying weight, EV growth is real but uneven, and China remains the hardest market in the room. The numbers are there. The details, as usual, are not always.
Source: carscoops
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