O The automaker again sold fewer cars in the second quarter than in 2021. One reason for this is the long lockdown in Shanghai.

Frankfurt The shortage of computer chips and the corona lockdown in China caused Mercedes-Benz sales to drop sharply in the second quarter. From April to June, the Stuttgart carmaker delivered 490,000 cars or 16 percent fewer than in the same period last year, Mercedes-Benz announced on Monday.

Missing parts and transport problems related to the lockdown in China, which affected the important commercial port of Shanghai, for example, slowed down production and deliveries. The particularly lucrative top models were also affected to the same extent, especially the sports car subsidiary AMG lacked electronic chips. Sales in the most important single market, China, fell the most – by 25 percent to 163,700 units. In Europe, sales fell by ten percent to 154,300 vehicles.

In the first half of the year, the decline in the main business segment Cars was 16 percent with a total of 998,000 deliveries. However, Mercedes-Benz is expecting a better second half of the year and is therefore sticking to the annual forecast of a slight increase in sales compared to 2021, as a Mercedes spokesman explained on request. According to the Dax group, there is no lack of interest on the part of buyers, despite fears of inflation and recession: “Customer demand is still high,” explained sales manager Britta Seeger.

Mercedes luxury models in high demand
Luxury models such as the Maybach and the electric cars from the EQ model series are in particularly high demand. In the highly profitable top segment, the Swabians sold more S-Class and Maybach luxury sedans, totaling 26,100 units, than ever before in a second quarter. The compact car segment suffered the sharpest decline of almost a third to 132,600 units. This is where the switch to pure electric cars like the EQA and EQB is progressing fastest. At 14 percent, their share of sales is above the average for Mercedes cars of just under five percent.

The smaller Vans division was just below the prior-year level in terms of sales in the second quarter with 100,000 units worldwide. The production of models such as the Sprinter, Vito and V-Class also suffered from the chronic shortage of semiconductors, albeit not as badly as the main business.