BERLIN, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Car sales of Daimler increased by 12.2 percent between July and September to a total of 590,514 units, marking a new record in sales for the third quarter, the German luxury carmaker announced on Monday.
Main growth driver would have been Daimler's compact car segment, which recorded an increase of more than 17 percent to 72,700 units sold in September alone, according to the car maker.
With the strong sales figures in the third quarter, Daimler was able to return to a "sales growth in the year to date," it said.
During the first six months of 2019, car deliveries of Daimler had declined by 4.6 percent compared to the first half of 2018.
In China, Daimler's core market in Asia, the German carmaker even achieved the best quarter in its history, with an increase of 12.9 percent to more than 180,000 units of Mercedes-Benz cars sold.
In domestic market Germany, a double-digit growth was recorded for the third consecutive month and a total of around 28,000 cars with the star badge were delivered.
While car sales of Daimler's Mercedes-Benz brand increased strongly in September, deliveries of the micro cars Smart plummeted by 32.8 percent to only 7,286 cars sold.
Daimler is currently amidst a restructuring of its Smart brand, with which the German carmaker is planning to phase-out conventional petrol powered engines for the micro cars in favor of purely electric drive trains.
