Mercedes must boost China volume to snatch luxury sales crown: executive

Daimler's premier luxury brand may sell "clearly more than 300,000" cars in China next year after boosting volumes in the world's No. 1 auto market by about 30 percent this year, the carmaker's China chief, Hubertus Troska, told reporters at Daimler's base in Stuttgart, Germany.

Mercedes-Benz must "significantly reduce the gap" to German rivals, Troska said. "There are huge opportunities to keep growing in China."

Mercedes-Benz has lagged BMW and Audi in China for years, partly because of problems with distribution networks that have since been fixed. In 2013, Daimler's flagship brand sold 228,000 cars there, compared with nearly 492,000 for Audi and over 362,000 for BMW.

(Reporting by Irene Preisinger; Writing by Andreas Cremer; Editing by Maria Sheahan)

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