Mercedes Rides SUV Craze to Second Year of U.S. Luxury Dominance

(Bloomberg) -- Daimler AG sold the most luxury vehicles in the U.S. for a second year, with its Mercedes-Benz brand weathering a shrinking market by tapping into America's love of SUVs.

Deliveries of the GLC crossover surged 53 percent last month and carried Mercedes to a record December in the U.S. Daimler padded its lead over both German peer BMW AG and Toyota Motor Corp.'s Lexus, even as annual sales for Mercedes slipped 0.9 percent.

Mercedes kept BMW and Lexus at bay by updating the compact GLA sport utility vehicle and adding new iterations of E-Class models, buoying demand for its passenger cars as sedans slumped across the industry. BMW, which has vowed to take back market share by expanding and revamping its lineup, boosted deliveries of the X4 and X5 crossovers last year. But demand fell for the rest of its SUVs as well as its top-selling 3 Series line.

“The glaring difference is the way that Mercedes has been more successful in shifting mix to truck from car,” said Kevin Tynan, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst. “They've done a better job of getting a richer truck mix sooner than BMW has.”

--With assistance from Jamie Butters

To contact the reporter on this story: Gabrielle Coppola in New York at gcoppola@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Craig Trudell at ctrudell1@bloomberg.net, Anne Riley Moffat

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