(April 8, 2015) STUTTGART — Mercedes-Benz continued its record 2015 sales pace with 183,467 vehicles sold worldwide in March — a 15.7% gain over March 2014. Sales have never before reached such a high level in one month. Since the beginning of the year, 429,602 vehicles have been handed over to customers, topping the previous year's record by nearly 15 percent.

“Mercedes-Benz recorded the strongest sales month and the best first quarter in the company's history in March,” said Ola Källenius, member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG. "These successful results are due in no small part to the product offensive we continued to drive forward in March. The CLA Shooting Brake, launched March 28, is the perfect addition to our compact car family,” continued Källenius.

Last month, Mercedes-Benz set a new sales record in Europe, where sales rose by 16.3% to 89,041 vehicles.

In the NAFTA region, a new sales record of 34,370 vehicles was set in March. In the U.S., sales exceeded March 2014 by 9.2% at 29,921.

Since the end of March, the CLA Shooting Brake supplements the successful compact car family of Mercedes-Benz. More than four million customers around the world have opted for an A-Class, B-Class, CLA or GLA since the launch of the first compact car from Mercedes-Benz in 1997. The compact cars continued to enjoy great popularity, which enabled a 25.3% sales increase in the first quarter of 2015 and thus a new record.

The track to record sales levels of the C-Class Sedan and Estate is unbroken. Since the beginning of the year, 109,050 units of these model series have been sold, 57.8% more than in the same period of the previous year.

The E-Class was especially popular in China: In the first quarter of 2015, the E-Class Sedan posted growth of 4.9% and achieved a new sales record there.

The best selling luxury sedan in the world, the S-Class Sedan, has been delivered to 25,849 customers since the beginning of the year, a 7.1% increase over 2014 and the most quarterly sales in the model series in history.

The SUVs have also achieved a new record. Since the beginning of the year, sales have increased by 31.9% in comparison with the previous year's period to a total of 107,323 units. The G-Class posted a sales growth of 24.2% and a new sales all-time high in March.