Mercedes-Benz Thailand, the local arm of the German luxury car maker, is confident of tremendous growth in local sales this year, downplaying a flat performance in the first four months.
Mercedes-Benz posted sales of 4,782 cars in the four months to April, up 0.5% on the same period last year.
German peer BMW posted a slight drop of 0.7% to 3,729 cars sold in the period, including Mini sales.
But the overall car market from January to April was robust, with a 10.5% year-on-year rise to 349,625 cars sold.
Frank Steinacher, vice-president for sales and marketing, said Mercedes-Benz Thailand saw first-quarter sales drop slightly after 36% year-on-year growth in December.
"The sales volume last December brought a bit lower pace during January-February, and this explained Mercedes-Benz's sales performance early this year," he said. "But we have seen sharp growth in April with 1,495 cars sold, up 19.4% year-on-year, while Mercedes-Benz received plenty of back orders to be delivered from May on, so we are looking forward to better growth in the remaining months of 2019."
Mr Steinacher said car sales remain vulnerable to seasonal changes and overall economic sentiment, but Mercedes-Benz has committed to plans for new products throughout 2019 to support customer needs in Thailand.
"Last month, Mercedes-Benz introduced five new AMG-labelled cars to create customer experience perspectives for this label, while we are emphasising car fleet sales to potential companies and business partners," he said.
According to Mr Steinacher, Mercedes-Benz has built up its business pillars in order to deliver what customers are demanding.
"Our compact vehicle segment is still growing very well among young-generation customers, while Mercedes-Benz's sport utility vehicles are shifting from niche to popular cars with sales accounting for 20-25% of our business," he said.
"We also offer the very high-end segment, like contemporary luxury and dream cars, as the fleet for luxury hotels and resorts, and the EQ: Electric Intelligence brand has received a good response from customers as well."
The new direction has seen 40 limousine deliveries of the S 350d Exclusive for corporate customers to six five-star hotels across Thailand with a total value of 300 million baht.
For the EQ brand, Mercedes-Benz has introduced many plug-in hybrid electric cars in Thailand, accounting for roughly 35% of annual sales.
Moreover, Mercedes-Benz has a further business pillar of certified used cars to support both trade-in buyers and actual demand from customers who have limited financial capabilities.