While many of its competitors, direct and indirect ones, were reeling under the scourge of the recession, Mercedes-Benz South Africa seems to have bucked the trend and made serious money in 2009.
The Zwartkops-based German conglomerate posted R28 billion (€2.7 billion) in revenue thanks to strong sales of the C-Class and the new E-Class primarily. The C-Class has actually been the segment-leader since it was launched, beating the ever-popular BMW 3 Series and fast-coming Audi A4.
“Despite this shrinking of the overall vehicle market, we at MBSA are most encouraged in that we only shed 15% on the passenger car side,” explained President and CEO, Dr Hansgeorg Niefer (pictured). Presenting the group’s results to the media at the Mercedes-Benz Lifestyle Centre in Bedfordview, Johannesburg, Niefer said, “While we anticipated a decrease in the group’s annual consolidated turnover, we are extremely pleased at having gained market share in our business.”
According to Niefer, Mercedes-Benz South Africa paid R650 million in taxes in the past financial year, R1.5 billion in staff salaries and R23 million towards further employee training and skilling.
“At MBSA we aim to live up to our responsibility to society. For years we have been fully committed to development and upliftment. The four focus areas of our corporate social investment (CSI ) strategy create both national and regional opportunities for investment in long-term projects that are designed to deliver positive results in the fields of education, safer communities, HIV and Aids, and the environment. National and industry-specific challenges are clearly targeted, and in addition the projects offer great opportunities for staff engagement. The aim of each project is to support meaningful socio-economic investment to facilitate transformation. Our biggest portion of our CSI budget, over 60%, is allotted to education,” said Niefer.
The passenger car division holds the highest overall market share of any Daimler subsidiary outside of its home country in Germany. This year it aims to increase this even further with planned introduction of products such as the R-Class facelift, the E-Class Cabriolet, the S-Class Coupe (former CL) and the formidable SLS AMG among others.
February sales were up 15% on February 2009 sales, although it must be said those were quite low due to the recession and other factors such as the National Credit Act which had begun taking effect on the economy. Nevertheless selling 4 839 Mercedes-Benz cars in one month is nothing to be sneezed at.
Currently building the C-Class for domestic use and for export at its East London plant, the company is also working its exhausts off in order to be chosen to manufacture the next-generation C-Class which is due to start production at the end of 2013/ beginning of 2014.
“So we are quite optimistic for 2010. But again, it’s hard work to convince current customers to buy another vehicle from our stable, as well as lure new customers currently driving competitors’ products. Painful as it may be at times, MBSA thoroughly enjoys the fierce competition in SA’s vehicle market; it keeps us on our toes. It’s healthy competition, where sometimes we’re ahead and sometimes our competitors are. But you can rest assured we’ll try everything possible to stay ahead of the game all the time. We’ll continue working hard to remain number one in the premium segment for passenger cars and leader in the truck market whilst rendering a premium service,” Niefer concluded.
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