VFACTS is yet to report sales for the final month of 2011, but the likelihood that BMW will top the prestige brand leaderboard for the year has already been conceded by David McCarthy, Senior Manager of Corporate Communications at Mercedes-Benz Australia.
"They're about 400 ahead, year to date," McCarthy told motoring.com.au earlier this month. "Phil [Horton, MD of BMW Australia] has said publicly on more than one occasion that they intend to be market leader..."
It's clearly disappointing for the Benz exec, but he suggests that the title of Australia's top-selling prestige brand may not come cheaply to BMW.
"I would suggest that [profit] may be a casualty. It doesn't mean they're going to lose money overall, but the amount of money they're throwing at this..."
The diversity of product available through the two brands ensures both are successful in different market segments and niches, and Benz sells larger sales volumes if the importer's commercial vehicle range is included — but where prestige branding is concerned, commercials aren't meant to be included.
"In passenger cars we absolutely slaughter them, but SUVs; they outsell us," McCarthy explained, "but don't forget, we only compete in a couple of those segments."
Where Benz particularly suffers against BMW in SUVs can be traced back to the lack of a GLK rival to the X3 in this country. Nor does Benz have a three-pointed star alternative to the X1, or the X6. Stuttgart does have future product plans to develop competitors to the BMW SUVs, but nothing in the here and now.
"Barring catastrophes they'll claim the title; and good on them."
As of the end of November, BMW had posted 15,595 sales for the year to date, excluding MINI sales. For the same period, Mercedes-Benz had notched up 15,446 vehicles, not including smart or commercials — so there's little in it, but it's not like Benz could pull a blinder and overtake BMW in the final month. Using the company's performance-branded AMG models to illustrate, McCarthy explained that sales for the year have already been counted — and new model launches during 2011 have hindered the constant flow of sales over time.
"Year to date, we have done 600 AMGs," McCarthy explained. Now in the production changeover from C 63, E 63 and CLS 63, we lost 295 units. Basically there were, for example, four months of no CLS. E 63 from April, our supply of the old car had virtually dried up and we got our first new car in August — and they were small numbers."
"In CLS 63 — raw figures — we lost 30; E 63 we lost 22, and the balance was C 63. With regard to C 63, we're expecting between 250 and 280, to arrive October to December — and to deliver during those months. We've already received 105; there's 145 that will arrive and will be registered in December, which will take our running total for the year to 745.
"Add into that... there's probably about 30 other AMGs [on the water], which will take us up to 775 for the year. If you then added in that 295 [missed sales due to model changeover], that would have taken us to about 1070. I think that if there hadn't been a production changeover, we would have exceeded last year's total of 1013."
The additional sales would have placed Benz in front of BMW by the close of 2011, based on just volumes for passenger vehicles and SUVs. But things will look up for Mercedes-Benz in the new year, says McCarthy. The importer will be able to start selling the high-performance ML 63 AMG once more (on the new W166 platform) and the C 63 Coupe will provide incremental sales gains over the full 12 months.
"ML 63, we haven't had any to sell since September. We won't get them to the end of the first quarter, but that's a vehicle that can consistently do 25, 35 a month.
"Looking at the sales rate of C 63 Sedan and C 63 Coupe... granted it's only anecdotal, but it does not appear that C 63 Coupe is stealing sales from sedan."
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