BERLIN, July 8 (Xinhua) -- Daimler's Mercedes-Benz brand achieved its "best second quarter ever in terms of unit sales" in China, where car sales increased by 21.6 percent year-on-year, the German carmaker announced on Wednesday.

In contrast to other market regions where sales declined strongly due to the impact of COVID-19, sales in China went up and even grew by 35 percent for commercial vans during the period, according to Daimler.

The development in China would show the "impressive speed at which demand is currently recovering in our largest market," Britta Seeger, member of the boards of management of Daimler and Mercedes-Benz, said in a statement.

Global sales of Mercedes-Benz cars declined year-on-year by 21 percent in the first six months of 2020 to around 935,000 units, while deliveries of the brand's van division declined even stronger, shrinking by around 26 percent to just 126,000 units during the period.

The strongest decline was recorded in Europe where sales were almost a third lower than in the second half of 2019. Even in its domestic German market where Mercedes-Benz achieved around 30 percent of its sales in Europe, demand collapsed by 27.9 percent.

Ola Kaellenius, chairman of the board of management of Daimler, said in his speech to the carmaker's shareholders at the annual general meeting Wednesday that "significant revenue decreases" would be recorded due to COVID-19. In the second quarter, the German company expected negative adjusted group EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) and negative free cash flow for its industrial business.

Kaellenius stressed that Daimler could increase its production "as quickly and efficiently as we scaled it down in the course of the global spread of COVID-19" although it was still "a long way back to pre-crisis levels."

Already before the crisis, Daimler had announced to cut 15,000 of its worldwide 300,000 jobs because profits were low in a year-to-year comparison despite record revenues. Enditem

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