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Lexus‘ stronghold on the United States luxury market came to an end in January, when Mercedes-Benz overtook the number one position earlier this year. This was far from a fluke– in fact, Mercedes-Benz managed to hold the top spot with strong gains over last year’s figures.
Going in the books as the best March in its U.S. sales history, Mercedes delivered 22,546 vehicles during the month, besting Lexus by 1864 vehicles and German rival BMW by 2251 units. Mercedes’ results reflected a 12.6-percent uptick when compared to the same period a year earlier, while Lexus was up only 2.3 percent. Despite falling short of Mercedes, Lexus claims it exceeded its goal for the month, with numbers up 33 percent from February.
Add up the entire quarter, and Mercedes remains the sales giant. M-B’s volumes in the U.S. totaled 55,995 units, nearly 8639 better than its Japanese competitor (and, for that matter, 3378 more than BMW). For the first quarter of 2011, Mercedes’ sales are up by 10.7 percent, while Lexus’ volumes have slid 5.7 percent when compared to the first quarter of 2010.
Although the year is still young, Mercedes-Benz appears to be on pace to dethrone Lexus from its 11-year reign as America’s top-selling luxury brand. Lexus faces an uphill battle to counter Mercedes-Benz, especially considering the vast majority of its models (with the exception of the RX crossover) are built in Japan, meaning production volumes will likely be hampered by the country’s recent natural disasters.
Lexus notes the events in the wake of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami are out of its hands and likely to affect sales, but promises it will be “number one in quality, value, and customer satisfaction.” According to company spokesman Bill Kwong, “those are far more important than being number one in sales.”
Source: Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, and BMW
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