It's BMW's birthday, but another German car maker is spoiling the party.
Next week BMW will celebrate its 100th anniversary — just in time for the Geneva Motor Show — but across the showroom floor, Mercedes-Benz is looking to capture the title of top luxury car brand which BMW has held for a decade, Bloomberg is reporting.
In fact, Mercedes will have the better offering at Geneva, according to Bloomberg's Elisabeth Behrmann wrote:
[Mercedes' progress] highlights the challenge facing BMW to re-energize the brand. Yet the Munich-based company isn’t bringing any new models to this week’s Geneva International Motor Show, in contrast with Daimler AG, which will show its bread-and-butter Mercedes E-Class sedan to European audiences for the first time, alongside a C-Class convertible.
The news of Mercedes' resurgence is a surprise to critics who had, just a few years ago, declared that the three-pointed star had lost some of its luster.
Since then, CEO of Mercedes-Benz's parent company Daimler AG Dieter Zetsche has lead a sales charge in China, while BMW's sales have struggled there.
But the biggest reason for BMW's stalled grown may be that it simply has run out of room:
Part of the reason BMW lacks near-term growth drivers is that it’s already occupying just about every segment it can, even pushing into people carriers with the van-like Gran Tourer. That creates a difficult challenge for Krueger, who at 50 years old is the youngest CEO of a major automaker, as he tries to shift the company from its roots emphasizing acceleration and handling to tackle the transformation of the car into a smartphone on wheels.
While technical challenges are an industry constant, what BMW has depended on for that top spot are new markets — which for the time being seem to be exhausted.
And the biggest new bet that BMW has made lately — the electric and electric-hybrid "i" series — is threatened by falling oil prices.
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