Mercedes gears up for drive to double sales over the next four years

"We cannot afford a further drop in sales. We made too large investments with our dealers to have them wasted. If the market buys about 230,000 cars in 2006, than the share of Mercedes will stand at 1.3%. Our forecast by 2010 envisages a growth in sales to 6,000 cars annually," said Paweł Miszkowski, sales and marketing director of Mercedes Car Group in Poland. One of the methods of achieving this objective will be mass promotions such as 'Starline,' which is currently promoting class A and C. "The novelty for us is stressing the price factor. The crisis on the Polish market resulted in the fact that you can no longer expect that our clients are people who do not count their money," explained Miszkowski. Over the first months of 2006 the company sold 406 cars against 251 sold a year earlier. (Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 10) M.M.