Daimler sees China 2011 sales outgrowing market

Daimler AG sees China sales exceeding the 10 percent overall growth of the car market this year, a senior company executive said Saturday.

Global luxury car makers, from Bayerische Motoren Werke AG or BMW to Audi AG, have racked up eye-popping sales, where a growing army of the super-rich is fueling de-mand for luxury Gucci handbags to Rolls-Royces.

"We want to grow faster than the 10-15 percent, our condition is that we grow faster than the total market and also the luxury car market," Klaus Maier, chief executive for Mercedes-Benz's China operations, told reporters in Shanghai.

China has been a major bright spot amid a global industry which are still recovering from a steep downturn.

But car sales this year will slow down considerably or even decline, as one industry observer had warned, after Beijing scrapped its incentive plans for small cars.

Beijing city's recent move to impose quotas on new car registrations and possibly similar moves by other big cities to tackle traffic gridlock will also apply the brakes on the market.

Ulrich Walker, chief executive of Daimler Northeast Asia, said he did not believe these measures would have much of a negative impact, as rising incomes and mobility are bringing new customers into the firm's fold.

"At the moment if you are talking about the (sales) volume, more than 50, 60 percent are on the east side of China," Walker said.

Reuters