Mercedes Benz India expects its sales to recover by the end of this year.

The company sold around 3,800 units in the fourth quarter last year and hopes sales to be at the same level in the fourth quarter of this year as well.

Launching the third-generation GLS Class, the most premium SUV in its stable, in Chakan (Pune) on Wednesday, Mercedes Benz India CEO and managing director Martin Schwenk said: “Sales had practically stopped due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But as we open up and with all our dealerships operational, I am hopeful.”

The company is on a product offensive as most of its best-selling models are transitioning to BS-VI.

“Year 2020 is going to be challenging for us. The industry was already facing strong headwinds before the pandemic and then we were in the midst of a transition to BS-VI. Our key volume models were due for change over. We did not have the CLA, the GLA, the volume rakers in our portfolio,” said the CEO. Both the BS-VI CLA and the GLA are due for launch in the fourth quarter this year. In fact, Schwenk called 2020 “the year of the SUVs”.

While the new models such as the GLE and the GLS are raking in orders, there is hardly any traction for the other models, said Santosh Iyer, vice-president, sales and marketing, Mercedes Benz India.

“For these two models, we are booked for June and there will be a waiting period now. But there is hardly any interest in our existing models. There have been around 2,000 enquiries since May 18 when we started opening up till now. But how many of these will actually convert into sales, I am not sure,” said Iyer.

Coming up

The company has lined up 10 launches through the year. The next launch will be the fully electric SUV EQC.

“There is a lot of buzz around the EQC. We have already launched the EQ brand early this year,” said Schwenk.

While EQC will test the waters for premium electric cars, it’s the big ticket launches of the GLA and CLA that the company is waiting for and hopes to have the full portfolio of its SUVs in BS-VI ready for the festive season. The third-generation GLS will retail at Rs 99.9 lakh for both petrol and diesel variants.

The model first came to India as a CBU in 2020. Local production started in 2013 and for 10 years the GLS sold 6700 plus units in India.