Mercedes to invest Rs 200 crore and launch 12 new cars

Pune: Mercedes Benz, India’s biggest German luxury car maker, on Monday said it will invest over Rs 200 crore in India, the world's third-largest car market, this year and launch over a dozen new cars with a focus on pricier models that have seen strong demand from young, affluent Indians, said Santosh Iyer, MD at Mercedes Benz India.

He said more than half of Mercedes' new car launches in India will be top-end vehicles and will be priced Rs 1.5 crore onwards.

“In India there is an evolving customer profile, the demographics are changing today and There is a lot of aspiration from the young achievers to straight away get into the top end segment of luxury cars," Iyer pointed out.

Increasingly, at present the Mercedes buyers in the country are typically business owners but the number of purchasers who are salaried professionals have climbed by a fifth since pre-COVID times to account for 12 to 14 per cent of buyers, he said, adding that the average customer age has been dropped to 38.

In the calendar year 2023, retail sales at Mercedes jumped 10 per cent to a record 17,408 cars in the country over 2022 on strong demand for its top-end cars and sport utility vehicles (SUVs).

Iyer said "mini metro" cities are "future growth engines" and the company plans to open new service workshops in some of these places such as Udaipur, Amritsar and Agra.

Mercedes launched its new GLS 450 SUV on Monday, with the petrol variant priced from Rs 1.32 crore. 1.5 crore.

Iyer said among the new car launches in the country this year will also include new three electric models. Electric vehicles currently make up 4 per cent of Mercedes' sales in India.

The Rs 200 crore will be invested in Mercedes' manufacturing operations at its factory in Pune and in launching new vehicles. This new investment takes it to a total investment of Rs 3,000 crore in its 30th year of Indian operations, Iyer said.