Half-year results: Daimler’s car sales well above the previous year’s level

Despite delivery bottlenecks for electronic components and temporary production stops in individual plants, Daimler again sold significantly more cars in the first half of the year than in the same period of the previous year.

Worldwide deliveries of the Mercedes-Benz brand increased between January and June compared to the first half of 2020 by almost a quarter to 1.16 million cars, as the Dax group announced in Stuttgart on Tuesday. The plus is also so clear because business had temporarily collapsed at the beginning of the Corona crisis in the previous year. The small car series Smart doubled its deliveries – albeit at a much lower level – to a good 20,250 vehicles.

China remains the most important market for the Swabians. Here the number of Mercedes-Benz cars sold rose by 28 percent to around 441,570. It was said to be the highest ever China sales in the first half of the year. There was also a significant increase in Europe (plus 22 percent) and North America (plus 24 percent). If you look at the drives of the cars sold, the combustion models clearly continue to dominate. The number of fully electric vehicles sold rose significantly in percentage terms, but at around 39,000 it made up just over 3 percent of all cars delivered.

Daimler announced that the delivery bottlenecks for semiconductors had caused problems with car deliveries, especially in June. It is expected that the bottleneck will have a negative impact on sales until the end of the year. The global problems with the replenishment of electronic chips have forced Daimler and other carmakers to repeatedly interrupt production for months. For example, Daimler had already sent thousands of employees at its plants in Rastatt and Bremen to short-time work several times.