Mercedes-Benz has struck it big with the all-new S-Class sedan, racking up more than 100,000 sales worldwide since its launch a year ago.
This is for the first time Mercedes-Benz has sold as many S-Class models in the first year of full availability, making it the most successful market launch of an S-Class ever. Mercedes-Benz is also proud that the new S-Class also had the fastest market launch ever, having arrived in less than twelve weeks in all its three core markets: Germany (end of July 2013), China (end of September 2013) and the United States (mid-October 2013).
Since the start of this year, Mercedes-Benz has sold 75,391 S-Class models, twice as many as in the same period of the previous year (+105.8 percent). As a result, more S-Class vehicles have been delivered to customers within the nine months of 2014 than in the full years 2012 or 2013. In September alone, Mercedes-Benz sold 9,501 S-Class luxury sedans (+139.3 percent).
The model’s biggest market is China, with almost every second S-Class delivered to customers going to the world’s largest car market. The second largest market for the luxury sedan is the US, where one quarter of all S-Classes is sold. Finally, the third most important market is Germany, accounting for one in ten sales.
Unsurprisingly, Mercedes-Benz sells the S-Class exclusively as a long-wheelbase model in China, with approximately 35 percent of S-Class models being ordered in China explicitly as a chauffeur-driven variant. The Chinese are the youngest S-Class customers: in their early 40s, they are on average 15 years younger than in Western Europe or the USA.
The new S-Class family will be available in six variants: the existing short and long-wheelbase versions, the S-Class Coupe launched on September 27 and “three other exclusive derivatives.”
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