Mercedes-Benz accelerating drive to bring top-end vehicles to India

Mumbai: German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz is accelerating its drive to bring top-end vehicles priced above Rs 1 crore to India, with demand even from non-metros growing at an accelerated pace, according to a senior company official.

The company, which on Thursday launched the premium new AMG SL55 MATIC+ roadster model with prices starting at Rs 2.35 crore ( all India ex-showroom)  -- its fifth launch of the year -- will bring another model in the top-end vehicles (TEVs) segment, which account for 25 per cent of its total sales in India.

The Mercedes-Benz SL55 4MATIC+  features a petrol V8 engine with twin turbo charge and offers a top speed of 295 km/hour, the company said.

"The non-metros, from a percentile basis are even bigger than metros but their base is small...Metros still contribute close to 70 per cent (of TEV sales) and the balance 30 per cent comes from non-metros...," Mercedes-Benz India MD & CEO Santosh Iyer told PTI here in an interview.

Still, he said the contribution of non-metros in TEV sales in the company's total sales is quite significant.

In the first quarter of 2023, Mercedes-Benz India had posted sales of 4,697 units, a 17 per cent growth over the year-ago period. The company, which posted record total sales of 15,822 units in 2022, had sold over 3,500 units of TEVs, growing at 69 per cent.

Overall, Iyer said TEV segment has witnessed robust growth. "In  January to May, we did close to 1,700 plus units of TEVs, which is valued at more than Rs 3,000 crore. If you look at the turnover of the TEVs only it is huge when it comes to us," he said, adding the waiting period for TEVs range from 6 to 24 months.

On how the company is strengthening the TEV portfolio, he said,"We committed 10 launches at the start of the year, of which more than 50 per cent would be TEVs. This (AMG SL55) is the fifth TEV that we're launching...There will be another TEV coming in the later part of the year." Asked about traction of the company's electric vehicles, Iyer said as part of its overall strategy of focussing on TEV, even in the electric segment the company is taking a top down approach led by the EQS model.

"We are fully committed that in the next three years time we will see 25 per cent of our sales coming from EVs. We will do the transition with the right products at the right point of time," he added.

On future EV launches, Iyer said,"As we said, in the next 12 to 18 months we will introduce at least three to four more EVs." The SL 55 is available with a drive system acting on all four wheels and comes equipped with AMG performance 4MATIC+ all-wheels drive technology as standard, the company said.