Mercedes 2010 Annual Report Download - page 66

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Business and General Conditions
The Group
Daimler AG is the parent company of the Daimler Group and
is domiciled in Stuttgart. The main business of the Company is
the development, production and distribution of cars, trucks
and vans in Germany and the management of the Daimler Group.
In addition to Daimler AG, the Daimler Group includes all the
subsidiaries throughout the world in which Daimler AG has a direct
or indirect controlling interest. Through those companies, we
conduct for example our business with buses and financial services.
The management reports for Daimler AG and for the Daimler
Group are combined in this Management Report.
Daimler can look back on a tradition now covering 125 years,
a tradition 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 completed by a range of tailored automotive services.
With its strong brands, Daimler is active in nearly all the countries
of the world. The Group has production facilities in a total of
18 countries and approximately 8,000 sales centers worldwide.
The global networking of research and development activities
and of production and sales locations gives Daimler considerable
potential to enhance efficiency and gain advantages in interna-
tional competition. For example, we can apply our green drive
technologies in a broad portfolio of vehicles while utilizing
experience and expertise from all parts of the Group. In the year
2010, Daimler generated revenue of €97.8 billion. The individual
divisions contributed to this total as follows: Mercedes-Benz Cars
53%, Daimler Trucks 22%, Mercedes-Benz Vans 8%, Daimler
Buses 5% and Daimler Financial Services 12%. At the end of 2010,
Daimler employed a total workforce of more than 260,000
people worldwide.
The products supplied by the Mercedes-Benz Cars division
range from the high-quality small cars of the smart brand to
the premium automobiles of the Mercedes-Benz brand and to
the Maybach luxury sedans. The main country of manufacture
is Germany, but the division also has production facilities in the
United States, China, France, South Africa, India, Vietnam and
Indonesia. Worldwide, Mercedes-Benz Cars has 17 production
sites at present. In order to extend our product range in the
compact-car segment, we are currently constructing a new plant
in Hungary, which is scheduled to go into operation in 2012.
The most important markets for Mercedes-Benz Cars in 2010
were Germany with 23% of unit sales, the other markets of Western
Europe (27%), the United States (17%) and China (13%).
As the biggest globally active manufacturer of trucks above 6 tons
gross vehicle weight, Daimler Trucks develops and produces
vehicles in a global network under the brands Mercedes-Benz,
Freightliner, Western Star and Fuso. The division’s 28 production
facilities are in the NAFTA region (14, thereof 11 in the United
States and 3 in Mexico), Asia (5), Europe (7), South America (1)
and Africa (1). In Brazil, Daimler Trucks will expand its production
network in 2012 with the addition of the plant in Juiz de Fora,
where heavy-duty Mercedes-Benz Actros trucks as well as
medium-duty Mercedes-Benz Accelo trucks will be produced for
Latin American markets. Daimler Trucks’ product range includes
light-, medium- and heavy-duty trucks for local and long-distance
deliveries and construction sites, as well as special vehicles for
municipal applications. Due to close links in terms of production
technology, the division’s product range also includes the buses
of the Thomas Built Buses and Fuso brands. Daimler Trucks’ most
important sales markets in 2010 were Asia with 34% of unit
sales, the NAFTA region (22%), Latin America excluding Mexico
(16%) and Western Eu rope (16%).
Mercedes-Benz Vans has production facilities at a total of seven
locations in Germany, Spain, the United States, Argentina
and Vietnam, and since April 2010 also in China in the context
of a 50:50 joint venture, Fujian Daimler Automotive. The division’s
product range comprises the Sprinter, Vito/Viano and Vario
series in weight classes from 1.9 to 7.5 tons. The most important
markets for vans are in Euro pe, which accounts for 77% of unit
sales. The Sprinter is sold in the United States under the Freight-
liner brand and since the beginning of 2010 also under the
Mercedes-Benz brand.