Chairman of the Board of Directors of Daimler AG Dieter Zetsche poses in front of the revealed Mercedes-Benz GLA 250 during the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, U.S., January 8, 2017 - REUTERS

AFP: German carmaker Mercedes-Benz overtook homegrown rival BMW to deliver the most luxury vehicles of any manufacturer in 2016, sales figures released Monday showed.

The Stuttgart-based firm sold almost 2.1 million vehicles worldwide, marking growth of 11.3% compared with 2015, parent company Daimler said in a statement.

It was the first time Mercedes sold more than two million vehicles in a year, allowing it to reclaim the top spot it lost to its Munich rival in 2005.

“Extraordinary growth, especially in China and Europe, has placed us at the top in the luxury segment,” Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said.

Mercedes had achieved its best year ever by sales for the sixth time in a row, he added.

China was a powerful growth market, with Mercedes boosting sales there by 26.6% over the year.

“Mercedes used to be very weak in China, it was a market where they made a lot of mistakes, but since then they’ve made up ground,” Stefan Bratzel, director of Germany’s CAM automobile institute, told AFP.

While the firm also saw double-digit sales growth in Europe, adding 12.4%, US business shrank slightly, by 0.8%.

SUVs were the biggest draw for buyers in 2016, topping 700,000 sales with growth of 34.3% as the firm introduced new models.

Compact cars were also among the top sellers, adding 9.3% to hit almost 637,000 units.

“Mercedes has benefited from a very new range of models,” said auto expert Bratzel, adding to its SUVs as well as updating its designs with “significant improvements”.

Daimler also reported best-ever sales for its Smart compact car, which added 21% compared with 2015 to hit 144,500 vehicles sold worldwide.

- Volume isn’t everything 

In its own figures released Monday, BMW said it sold just over 2.0 million vehicles under its flagship brand in 2016, also a new record.

The Munich-based firm notched up growth of 5.2% over 2015’s result, but couldn’t hold Mercedes off the top of the sales podium.

BMW’s growth fell short of Mercedes in China and Europe and it shrank faster in the US, at 9.7% for its BMW and Mini cars combined.

“We will not at all costs strive for volume leadership” in the race with Mercedes, BMW board member Ian Robertson told AFP at the Detroit Auto Show -- noting that when comparing the groups’ overall figures, BMW had outsold Daimler.

Instead, BMW would aim for a return on sales of 8 to 10%, he went on, as well as unit sales growth in “lower single digits” in 2017.

Like Mercedes, BMW also pointed to “a global trend towards SUVs”, with models from its X range accounting for one in three vehicles sold under the premium brand in 2016.

Meanwhile, Volkswagen’s luxury brand Audi reported on Monday that it had sold almost 1.9 million vehicles in 2016, up 3.8% on the previous year.

The Ingolstadt-based firm suffered “strong headwinds from many important markets,” board member Dietmar Voggenreiter said.

Some Audi cars were among those affected by the Volkswagen group’s ‘dieselgate’ scandal, which saw the auto giant admit to building devices designed to cheat regulatory emissions tests into 11 million vehicles worldwide.

Audi is “undoubtedly the weakest of the three manufacturers, even if it managed to hold onto its position in China” CAM expert Bratzel said.

The manufacturer added slightly to sales in China in 2016 at 3.6%, while growing 4.0% in the US and 7.6 in western Europe.

But Audi only achieved double-digit growth in its smaller western European markets like Italy and Spain.

Jaguar Land Rover sells record 583,313 cars in 2016

Reuters: Britain’s biggest carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) sold a record 583,312 cars last year as the Indian-owned firm continues its rapid expansion with the aim of building 1 million vehicles a year at the turn of the decade.

Sales were up 20 percent from the previous year, although sales growth slowed to 12 percent year-on-year in December, the carmaker said.

The automaker, which spent years in the doldrums before being bought by India’s Tata in 2008, has since invested heavily in new models and expanded production with plants in China and Brazil and construction of a new site in Slovakia under way.

Sales of luxury Jaguar models rose 77% to 148,730 units in 2016 due to strong demand for a range of new high-end products including the F-PACE, the brand’s first off-roader which was launched last year.

Europe was the carmaker’s biggest overall market, accounting for almost a quarter of total demand.

The firm said its line-up will continue to expand but it has warned about the negative effect any tariffs on its business imposed as part of a Brexit deal could have if Britain were to lose unfettered access to the single market.

Its annual profit could be cut by one billion pounds ($1.23 billion) by 2020 if Britain returned to World Trade Organisation rules for trade with the continent, two sources told Reuters last year.