Daimler drives on to record sales

German top-of-the-range carmaker Daimler said Thursday that it sold a record number of vehicles worldwide in the second quarter, driven largely by strong demand for its flagship Mercedes-Benz brand.

Daimler said in a statement that it sold 761,3340 cars and commercial vehicles in the period from April to June, an increase of seven percent over the year-earlier period.

That strong performance pushed second-quarter revenues up by three percent to 38.6 billion euros ($42.6 billion) and bottom-line net profit also up by three percent to 2.45 billion euros, the statement said.

Underlying or operating profit, as measured by earnings before interest and tax (EBIT), climbed by six percent to 3.97 billion euros.

Daimler said sales of its Mercedes-Benz cars grew by nine percent to 546,517 units in the April-June period.

By contrast, sales of trucks were down 13 percent at 108,282 units owing to weakness primarily in the North American region.

Looking ahead, chief executive Dieter Zetsche was confident for the remainder of the year.

"We are starting the second half of the year with record unit sales and will systematically continue along our path," Zetsche said.

"We continue to grow profitably and are well on the way to achieving our forecasts for the full year," said chief financial officer Bodo Uebber.

"We intend to make 2016 into another successful year for Daimler. However, the markets remain volatile," he added.

In terms of revenues, Daimler said it is pencilling in a "slight increase" for the full year, with the strongest revenue growth anticipated in Asia and Western Europe.

"But business volumes should grow also in the other regions."

As for underlying profits, "on the basis of the market development and the assessments of the divisions, Daimler assumes that it will slightly increase its EBIT adjusted for special items in 2016," it said.

At the start of July, Daimler unveiled plans to acquire the Dutch car-leasing specialist Athlon for 1.1 billion euros.

Earlier this week, Daimler also found itself among a group of five leading truckmakers fined nearly three billion euros by the European Commission for colluding to fix prices and dodge the costs of stricter pollution rules.