KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 8 — Mercedes-Benz Malaysia (MBM) posted record sales in 2015, up 56 per cent to 10,845 units from 6,932 in the previous year.

president/chief executive officer Dr Claus Weidner said MBM sold the A-Class to the brand's leading S-Class with locally-produced limousines, namely C-, E- and S-Class leading the sales.

“A total of 7,989 units of locally-produced vehicles were sold last year, a 75 per cent increase, with diesel hybrid, the E-Class, taking the top spot with 3,383 units, followed by C-Class (2,697 units) and S400L (1,909 units),” he said at a media briefing on the group's 2015 performance here today.

Weidner said MBM's compact vehicles also continued to maintain steady sales growth, up 21 per cent to 2,811 units, with the CLA models topping the sales with 959 units followed by the A-Class (832 units) and GLA (816 units).

At the heart of the MBM's success has been the Pekan production plant and its strong service and dealer network, he said.

“The plant managed to produce 7,710 cars last year and was crowned as the first and only completely knocked down plant to successfully implement a two-shift production from April last year.

“With an investment of RM350 million, MBM continued to be the largest premium car network with 28 dealers nationwide,” he said.

Meanwhile, MBM's vice president, passenger cars, Mark Raine, said 2015 had been the record-breaking year for MBM when it achieved the best ever sales in June and the best second quarter.

He said MBM managed to improve its market share by 0.7 per cent to 1.9 per cent and continued to be the leader in premium car segment in Malaysia.

“Our local products continued to be success drivers of our brand in addition to the variants of the new product launches with exciting design and models that further drive the growth,” he said.

Raine said in 2015 MBM introduced 14 variants and moving forward it would launch its compact, limousines and dream cars segment throughout the year especially in the first six months this year.

“The company targets 2016 to be as successful as last year and to retain and expand leadership position in premium car market in Malaysia.

“We are confident of achieving this by carrying out last year's momentum and leverage on our customers' confidence on our vehicles and brand and continue extensive emphasis on our local partners which we had heavily invested in to drive best services to our customers,” he said. — Bernama