Mercedes soars above competitors in Vietnam

Mercedes has dominated Vietnam’s luxury car market for the last four years as Lexus, Volvo and other trailing brands tussle behind.

Auto registration data showed that between 2019 and 2022, Mercedes secured and average of around 60% of Vietnam’s total luxury car market share.

The German brand sold 7,925 cars in the Southeast Asian nation last year, up 35% from 2021.

The figure was five times that of the second-place brand, Lexus.

In the last four years Mercedes sold on average nearly 6,400 cars in the Vietnam, higher than the combined figure of its six next major competitors.

Before 2022, Mercedes was the only auto brand with an assembling factory in Vietnam. This gave it a price advantage over its competitors, who bear the burden of heavy import taxes.

Mercedes also has a diverse array of models available in Vietnam, up to 20 at any given time, giving customers a wider variety of purchase options than their competitors.

Mercedes GLC SUV has been the brand’s best-selling model in Vietnam over the last four years, accounting for around half of its total sales.

Lexus trails far behind Mercedes as Vietnam’s number-two most popular foreign car, but number-three competitor Volvo from Sweden is hot the Japanese manufacturer’s tails.

Lexus sold 1,568 units last year, only marginally higher than Volvo with 1,508 units.

No brand saw Vietnamese sales grow as fast as Volvo in the 2019-2022 period.The Scandinavian brand has seen sales surge 200% in the last four years, pushing Germanic BWM into fourth place in 2022.

In recent years Volvo has begun to sell more cars made in Malaysia than in Sweden, making its prices more affordable in Vietnam, even though the brand was the last luxury automaker to enter Vietnam in 2016.

Porsche was Vietnam’s fifth most popular luxury car brand last year with 759 units, nearly double the number it achieved in 2021.

A Porsche manager said that many of its customers are young and successful businesspeople who want to “reward” themselves with a Porsche car even though they possess only a limited knowledge of luxury automobiles.

Audi was in sixth place in Vietnam last year with 394 cars sold. Its dealership network in Vietnam remains modest compared to its competitors.