German automaker Daimler has seen business stabilize in China after the country ended coronavirus lockdowns, a senior manager at the automaker informed a newspaper on Sunday.
“In China alone, we sold about 50,000 vehicles again in March. That makes us confident,” said Markus Schaefer, managing board member for production, according to Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
Mercedes-Benz delivered about 477,400 passenger cars globally between January and March. The report did not mention how many of those went to consumers in China, who purchased 694,200 Mercedes-Benz cars last year, 29% of overall sales.
Starting Monday, cars are set to roll off the automaker’s assembly line again in Germany. The Sindelfingen and Bremen passenger-car factories will begin production of E- and S-Class vehicles.
China remains the largest market for the S-Class built in Sindelfingen. Normally several hundred vehicles roll off the assembly line in Sindelfingen on daily basis.
“We won’t reach this number right away when production starts next week,” Schaefer added.
Daimler reported a decline of almost 70% in first-quarter operating profit on Thursday because of the pandemic and cautioned that the cash flow it uses to pay dividends would decline this year.
About 82,827 people in China, have been confirmed as being infected with the coronavirus of which 77,346 have made recovery. The virus has killed 4,632 people in the country. Although these figures are heavily disputed and experts say the government has deliberately under-reported the figures.
