{"id":62665,"date":"2026-07-28T09:17:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T09:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/62665\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T09:17:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T09:17:17","slug":"mercedes-makes-more-profit-but-its-passenger-car-division-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/62665\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercedes makes more profit, but its passenger car division struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FILE<\/a> FILE PHOTO – The Mercedes-Benz logo stands in front of a branch on Salzufer. (is associated with: \u00abMercedes makes more profit, but its passenger car division struggles\u00bb) Fabian Sommer\/dpa <\/p>\n

German carmaker Mercedes-Benz on Tuesday posted a rise in group profit for the first time in three years, but a sharp slump in China sales continued to weigh heavily on its car division. <\/p>\n

From April to June, group net profit climbed 13.5% compared with the same period last year, rising from \u20ac957 million to around \u20ac1.09 billion ($1.2 billion), , the Stuttgart-based carmaker said. <\/p>\n

The last time the DAX-listed company recorded a year-on-year increase in group profit was in the second quarter of 2023. <\/p>\n

Revenue, however, fell 3.3% to just over \u20ac32 billion. Operating profit, or earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), rose 21.5% to around \u20ac1.55 billion. <\/p>\n

Mercedes said it had continued to improve its efficiency and productivity. Cost measures from a savings programme supported the result in the second quarter, the company said. The results of the vans and financial services divisions also helped prop up the weaker car division. <\/p>\n

“Despite a demanding market environment, we remained on track in the second quarter while continuing to advance our product launch programme,” Mercedes chief executive Ola K\u00e4llenius said, according to a company statement. <\/p>\n

“In the second half, we will focus on bringing more new models to customers while further improving our cost position and productivity,” K\u00e4llenius said. <\/p>\n

Sharp drop in China sales <\/p>\n

A significant decline in China weighed on sales in the second quarter once again. Mercedes sold around 512,000 cars and vans, a drop of 6% compared with the same quarter last year. Car sales in the key market fell 30%. <\/p>\n

The changes in China were driven in part by increased market pressure, a less favourable model mix and costs related to ramp-up campaigns, the company said. <\/p>\n

The weak China business had consequences. The car division’s operating profit collapsed by around 94%, from \u20ac783 million to just \u20ac49 million. This figure included an impairment on Chinese equity investments of more than \u20ac700 million. Even stripping that out, car division EBIT fell 26% to \u20ac909 million. <\/p>\n

Outlook partly revised <\/p>\n

Against the backdrop of a continued challenging market environment in China, Mercedes adjusted parts of its outlook for the current financial year. The company now expects car sales to come in slightly below the prior-year level, having previously forecast sales on a par with last year. Group revenue is also now expected to come in slightly below the prior-year level. <\/p>\n

After the first six months of the year, group net profit is down 6.3% to around \u20ac2.52 billion. Revenue for the first half is 4.1% below the same period last year, while EBIT is down 3.1%. <\/p>\n

Profit slumps and cost-cutting efforts <\/p>\n

Mercedes has been struggling for some time. In 2025, profit fell by nearly half, from \u20ac10.4 billion to \u20ac5.3 billion, after having already dropped 28.4% year on year in 2024. <\/p>\n

More than a year ago, the carmaker responded by launching a savings programme. At the end of June, Mercedes tightened its cost-cutting course and, as an immediate measure, deferred a contractual special payment to next year. <\/p>\n

At the same time, the management board sparked a debate about labour costs in Germany by announcing that employees should work more for the same pay. This was followed by protests from workers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE PHOTO – The Mercedes-Benz logo stands in front of a branch on Salzufer. (is associated with: \u00abMercedes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20951],"tags":[89,3622,22297,15010],"class_list":["post-62665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mercedes-benz","tag-china","tag-mercedes-benz","tag-net-profit","tag-operating-profit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}