Not worried about rivals, it’s value over volume for us: Mercedes India CEO |
Mercedes-Benz India isn’t losing sleep over rival BMW, which is catching up fast, even as its own sales declined last year. The biggest luxury carmaker in India delivered 19,007 cars in 2025, a decline of 2.8 percent from the previous year, while BMW volumes surged by 14 percent to 18,001 units.
“I’m not worried at all. We’ve seen this before. What’s happening today is largely an entry-segment price war. We don’t want to participate in that. We will choose value over volume, just as we did in 2012–13,” Santosh Iyer, Managing Director and CEO of Mercedes-Benz India, said in an interview.
Iyer was referring to the years after BMW and Audi entered India in 2007, breaking Mercedes-Benz’s long-held dominance with an aggressive product push and sharp pricing. By 2012, Mercedes had slipped to third place, ceding ground after years of a near monopoly. The company then responded by launching a wave of new models and price resets in 2013. Within two years, the strategy paid off: by 2015, Mercedes-Benz had reclaimed the top spot in the luxury car market.
“Price wars damage residual values, erode brand trust, and hurt customers who already own the car. You can see brands that are still struggling with those consequences. We don’t see that as a sustainable strategy,” said........