An industry that’s been struggling for several quarters now seems to have found an unlikely outlier. Mercedes-Benz India delivered record cars during the festive period of Navratri and Dussehra. The company delivered 550 Mercedes-Benz to customers – Delhi alone saw 175 units delivered, while Mumbai and Gujarat emerged as other key markets.

In a free-wheeling chat with Mitali Mukherjee, Martin Schwenk, managing director and CEO, Mercedes-Benz India Pvt Ltd, said the company was quite optimistic about sales for the Dhanteras-Diwali period as well and expected sales in October to be 25% higher than the September figure.

He also said that North India was picking up traction, even as he warned that things were not ‘normal’ yet and he didn’t expect the next year to see a normalisation of trends either.

On the contentious GST issue, that has seen much debate in the auto sector, Schwenk said it was an extremely long shot to expect any rationalisation in the GST structure.

He pointed out that the current tax regime was not conducive to sales; Mercedes Benz attracts GST of between 48-50% and an additional 20% for road taxes.

However, Schwenk said he believed the passenger vehicle industry was witnessing a pick up as the need for a reliable personal vehicle is now, even as 2 wheeler sales are struggling – perhaps a sign of how different economic sections of the country are feeling the impact of a slowdown.

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