KUALA LUMPUR: Mercedes-Benz Malaysia (MBM) plans to increase investments locally to beef up its leadership presence in the country’s luxury vehicle segment in the country.
Its president and chief executive officer Dr Claus Weidner said Malaysia was a conducive environment for the German marquee to expand its reach, weighing on the government’s tax incentives.
“We are definitely very happy to be here (Malaysia). From 2003 until 2017, we invested over RM1 billion and we will continue to invest as we are confident of growing our premium brand in the Malaysian market,” he told NST Business in an interview recently.
The additional investment will depend on the company’s economic feasibility perspective and market demand, Weidner said, adding that it was still early to quantify the exact amount.
On the government’s recently announced plan to restrict importation of foreign cars into the Malaysian market, he said MBM supports a level playing field in the automotive industry, which would be in the best interests of all automotive players.
“We are actually a local player. We are proud of this, and our investment into the industry involves the production facility in Pekan, Pahang, dealer networks and human capital development,” Weidner said.
MBM’s vehicles sold in the country were mainly locally assembled models, including the C-Class, E-Class, S-Class (limousine) and the GLC (sport utility vehicle).
Asked on how the impending Sales and Services Tax (SST) would impact MBM pricing for its cars, Weidner said the company would need to examine the new tax mechanism (which will be debated in Parliament this week).
“Once the final mechanism is imposed, we will see. At the end of the day, we are looking at long-term pricing strategy but we have to see how the new taxation system will impact our cars,” he added.
Weidner said MBM was confident of achieving another sales record for 2018, noting that it was on track to retain its leadership position in the luxury segment locally.
“We just launched a big range of the S-Class family and there are still more launches in the pipeline,” he said.
For the first-half of 2018, MBM led the local premium segment with a 2.5 per cent market share, registering a 15 per cent increase in sales of 6,790 units from 5,913 units in the same period a year ago.
MBM sales and marketing of passenger cars vice president Mark Raine said the company’s locally-produced limousines continued to be the biggest sales contributors, recording 18 per cent growth with 4,322 units delivered in 1H of 2018.
For the fifth consecutive year, Mercedes-Benz was the best-selling luxury car in Malaysia, ousting other rivals in terms of sales with 5,388 units (2013); 6,932 units (2014); 10,845 units (2015), 11,779 units (2016) and12,045 units (2017).
Last Thursday, MBM launched the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class with four variants namely the S450 L AMG Line, S560 Cabriolet, Mercedes-AMG S63 Coupe and Mercedes-Maybach S560.