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Mercedes-Benz, BMW lock horns in discount war to bolster sales
Mercedes-Benz's EQE 500 4MATIC SUV / Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz Korea
By Ko Dong-hwan
Mercedes-Benz and BMW, the two most popular imported car brands in the country, are locking horns by introducing large-scale discounts on some of their models, according to industry sources, Monday.
Mercedes-Benz is offering the biggest discounts on its electric vehicle lineup. The luxury carmaker slashed the 190 million won ($143,000) price tag of the EQS 450 by 40 million won and shaved 15 million won off the EQE's price tag.
Some of the models from the brand's most popular E-class, such as the E250 Avant-garde, E250 AMG Line and E300, are also available at 11-million-won discounts. The price tag of the diesel E220d is being discounted by 14 million won.
BMW is offering up to a 12-million discount for the 3 series and up to 10 million won for the 4 series and 5 million for the 5 series.
The large-scale discounts are expected to play a key role in influencing the neck-and-neck competition in market share between the two rival carmakers.
From January to October of this year, Mercedes-Benz sold 60,988 vehicles in Korea, slightly behind BMW which sold 62,514 vehicles during the same period. Mercedes-Benz has ranked at the top among imported automakers when it comes to annual sales in the country for the past eight years.
The two automakers have launched discounts to bolster sales amid high interest rates and a sluggish economy that affected the country's automobile market.
An industry official said this is not the first time Mercedes-Benz offered huge discounts, adding that Mercedes launched an unprecedented discount campaign in December last year and registered almost 10,000 sales.
An official at Mercedes-Benz said discounts are offered by local dealerships and each one introduces a different percenrage of discounts.
"Since we are selling the cars to local dealerships at wholesale prices and the discounts are under those dealerships' control, we have no idea which models are being sold for how much of a discount," said the official.