BERLIN, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Daimler's sales have fallen for the third month in a row in August, the German carmaker announced on Monday.
Sales of Mercedes-Benz vehicles, the flagship brand of the Stuttgart-based Daimler Group, fell to 155,981 units during the last month. The figure marked a decline of 8.5 percent compared to the same period last year.
Daimler attributed the development to the introduction of several new models, including a new A- and C-Series, as well issues surrounding the compliance of diesel vehicles with the new Worldwide harmonized Light vehicles Test Procedure (WLPT).
As of Sept. 1, the WLTP regulatory regime for exhaust systems testing has become legally-binding in the European Union (EU). Technological changes required to fulfil the stands have been associated with delays in production at several German carmakers and even led the Daimler and Volkswagen Groups to issue profit warnings to their respective investors earlier.
Daimler expressed confidence on Monday that the trend towards falling sales would be reversed in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2018 and highlighted growing sales at the Smart brand (plus 9.8 percent in August) as a bright spot in an otherwise challenging industry environment currently faced by the carmaker.
So far this year, gross combined sales for all Daimler brands are up slightly by 0.9 percent at a total of 1.6 million globally-sold vehicles.
Daimler is publicly-listed on the Dax stock exchange in Frankfurt and achieved gross revenue of 164.3 billion euros (190.2 billion U.S. dollars) in 2017. The company employs more than 289,000 workers across the world.
