Car company in danger of falling: Mercedes climbs the margin summit

Stuttgart. Full tills are dangerous, at least for Mercedes-Benz. Whenever the Swabian carmaker has shone financially in its more than 135-year history, cost excesses, indolence or high-spirited maneuvers like the Chrysler merger often followed. In this respect, the brand with the star is currently in a delicate phase.

Profits shot up by more than a third in the previous year and reached a new record of EUR 14.8 billion. 2023 also got off to a good start. In the first quarter, the operating return on sales in the dominant car division was almost 15 percent.

But now the competition is getting “tougher”, CEO Ola Källenius has been warning internally for weeks. “Without consistent work on our cost structures, we would not be where we are today,” the manager recently wrote in an e-mail to his most important executives. “And looking ahead, this task becomes even more important.” His appeal: “Don’t let up now.”