Mercedes 2015 Annual Report Download - page 67

74 B | COMBINED MANAGEMENT REPORT | CORPORATE PROFILE
Business model
Daimler can look back on a tradition covering 130 years – a tradi-
tion that extends back to Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz, the
inventors of the automobile, and features pioneering achieve-
ments in automotive engineering. Today, the Daimler Group
is a globally leading vehicle manufacturer with an unparalleled
range of premium automobiles, trucks, vans and buses. The
product portfolio is rounded out by a range of tailored financial
services and mobility services. Daimler seeks to play a leading
role in the digitization of products, services and processes in the
automotive industry.
Daimler AG is the parent company of the Daimler Group and
is domiciled in Stuttgart (Mercedesstraße 137, 70327 Stuttgart,
Germany). The main business of Daimler AG is the develop-
ment, production and distribution of cars, trucks and vans in
Germany and the management of the Daimler Group. The
management reports for Daimler AG and for the Daimler Group
are combined in this management report.
With its strong brands, Daimler is active in nearly all the countries
of the world. The Group has production facilities in a total
of 19 countries and more than 8,500 sales centers worldwide.
The global networking of research and development activities
and of production and sales locations gives Daimler considerable
advantages in the international competitive field and also
offers additional growth opportunities. In addition, we can apply
our innovative drive and safety technologies in a broad port-
folio of vehicles while utilizing experience and expertise from
all parts of the Group. This also helps us with the further
development of autonomous driving technology, an area in which
we play a pioneering role for both passenger cars and
commercial vehicles.
In 2015, Daimler increased its revenue by 15% to €149.5 billion.
The individual divisions contributed to this total as follows:
Mercedes-Benz Cars 54%, Daimler Trucks 24%, Mercedes-Benz
Vans 7%, Daimler Buses 3% and Daimler Financial Services 12%.
At the end of 2015, Daimler employed a total workforce of more
than 284,000 people worldwide.
The products supplied by the Mercedes-Benz Cars division
comprise a broad spectrum of premium vehicles of the
Mercedes-Benz brand and its Mercedes-AMG and Mercedes-
Maybach sub-brands. These vehicles range from the compact
models of the A-Class and B-Class to a highly varied program
of sport utility vehicles, roadsters, coupes and convertibles,
and S-Class luxury sedans. The portfolio is rounded out by the
new Mercedes me sub-brand and the high-quality small cars
of the smart brand. The main country of manufacture is Germany,
but the division also has production facilities in the United
States, China, France, Hungary, Romania, South Africa, India,
Vietnam and Indonesia, and at Valmet Automotive in Finland.
In the medium term, we anticipate significant growth in world-
wide demand for automobiles and above-average growth in
the premium car segment. In order to ensure that we can exploit
this potential, we are creating additional production capacities,
especially at Beijing Benz Automotive Co. (BBAC) in China and
at our plants in the United States and India. We will also
expand our global production network with a new plant in Brazil,
where we will produce the next generation of the C-Class
as well as the GLA compact SUV for the local market starting
in 2016. Together with our partner Renault-Nissan, we are
now establishing an assembly plant in Aguascalientes, Mexico,
which will also begin manufacturing compact vehicles of the
Mercedes-Benz brand in 2018. The most important markets for
Mercedes-Benz Cars in 2015 were China with 20% of unit
sales, the United States (18%), Germany (15%) and the other
markets of Western Europe (24%).
As the biggest globally active manufacturer of trucks above
6 metric tons gross vehicle weight, Daimler Trucks develops
and produces vehicles in a global network under the brands
Mercedes-Benz, Freightliner, Western Star, FUSO and BharatBenz.
The division’s 26 production facilities are located in the
NAFTA region (14), Europe (7), Asia (3 ) and South America (2).
In China, Beijing Foton Daimler Automotive Co., Ltd. (BFDA),
a joint venture with our Chinese partner Beiqi Foton Motor Co.,
Corporate Profile
Mercedes
-Benz Cars 54%
Daimle
r Trucks 24%
Mercedes
-Benz Vans 7%
Daimle
r Buses 3%
Daimle
r Financial Services 12%
C
onsolidated revenue by division
B.01