In The Fast Lane

Mercedes-Benz India has built a huge lead as the No. 1 luxury car company in India. Can it stay ahead in the race as its biggest competitors, BMW and Audi, step up their game?

- T. Surendar

There is an unwritten but sacrosanct rule on how new movies starring the badshahs of Bollywood are released. The managers of the superstar Khans—Shah Rukh, Salman, and Aamir—see to it their movies rarely hit theatres on the same day or even a couple of weeks apart. This ensures that each new film can run on maximum screens, raking in big bucks at the box office for a few weekends. That way, producers recover most of their costs for the usually high-budget films and the superstar continues to rule the roost.

SUCH AN ARRANGEMENT, it seems, also exists among the famous trinity of German automakers, though maybe not by design. Big new car launches of Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi rarely coincide. Globally, Mercedes chose to refresh its product line in 2013, some five years after Audi launched its flagship A8 and around two years after BMW started introducing its new models. That year, Mercedes posted one of its best business performances in recent times.

The global story also seems to be playing out in India, where these carmakers sold a little more than 30,000 units in 2017. Between 2015 and 2017, Mercedes practically had a free run in India as BMW launched its new 5 Series last year and Audi will roll out its updated A8 only next year. Mercedes is still way ahead in the race, but as the competition steps up its game for the small but rapidly growing Indian luxury car market, the German carmaker is firing on all cylinders to maintain its lead. It has shed its image of being a fuddy-duddy carmaker, without the flashy elegance of its German rivals. And it is now whacking its competition at every end of the luxury car spectrum: SUVs, sports cars, and a specially designed long-wheelbase sedan.