BERLIN—Mercedes-Benz delivered 2.05 million passenger cars in 2022, the company said on Tuesday, down 1 percent on the previous year as the carmaker felt the impact of COVID-19 measures and bottlenecks.
Still, fourth-quarter sales rose 17 percent as logistics and supply chain bottlenecks eased, and battery-electric sales grew 124 percent over the course of the year to 117,800 units.
Demand for the carmaker’s high-end Maybach vehicles was particularly strong, with 2022 sales up 37 percent year-on-year driven by higher sales in China, Japan, Korea, and the Middle East.
The only key region to see a year-on-year fall in sales was China, with a 1 percent drop, according to Tuesday’s data.
Europe and North America saw 1 percent and 3 percent growth, respectively, while the rest of the world saw a 27 percent fall in sales largely due to the carmaker suspending operations in Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.
Entry-level vehicles, the lowest price segment, saw a 10 percent sales drop primarily due to supply chain bottlenecks, the carmaker said.
Rival BMW Group delivered just under 2.4 million vehicles in 2022, down 4.8 percent from the year before, with brand sales down 5.1 percent as bottlenecks caused by lockdowns in China as well as the war in Ukraine dampened deliveries.
