Ola Källenius, Harald Wilhelm & Martin Daum zur Jahres-Pressekonferenz der Daimler AG

The year 2009 was a stress test for almost every company and every industry, and I would like to open this annual press conference by thanking the Daimler team worldwide. They helped us pass this stress test very well. Thank you. I think we learned to work differently in 2020. Of course we all hope to return to some kind of normality soon, but we have learned some things we will keep in the future: more agility, flexibility, faster decision-making. Those were some of the highlights of 2020. What was important for Daimler? What did we achieve last year? We strongly improved our financial results, especially in the second half. We restructured, we increased our cost efficiency, but we also used the time to think during the pandemic, to rethink our strategy. We sharpened the strengths of our company and we are confident we will use them even better in the future. At the beginning of the year we also made important decisions. We promised our shareholders that we would split Daimler into two major industrial businesses: leading luxury cars and global champion in trucks. The second half of 2020 went so well that we now look to 2021 with confidence, and we believe we can work even more dynamically. Looking at the key figures: due to the pandemic, sales flattened and revenue was affected, but we had very disciplined cash management. Under these negative signs, we maintained our free cash flow well, leading to a strong net industrial liquidity position of 18 billion euros. Let's focus on Mercedes-Benz. What happened last year in luxury cars? Mercedes-Benz is the leading luxury brand in cars and we want to build on that, especially regarding electrification of our fleet. We almost tripled our worldwide electric vehicle sales, we met ambitious CO2 targets in Europe, showing we are on the right track: zero emissions. Our ambition for 2039 is a clear commitment to the future of Mercedes-Benz. We rethought our strategies: what is the unique selling point of Mercedes-Benz? Where can we best use our strengths? We made a clear commitment to strongly drive electrification. We launched our flagship, the S-Class. Every time we launch a new S-Class, it is more than just another product; it is something everyone at Mercedes is proud of. The new S-Class brings new dimensions in digitalization for customers. Customers worldwide know that, and compared to the last S-Class launched seven years ago, we have over 30% more order intake. We successfully implemented measures not only to increase cost efficiency but also to restructure. We made tough decisions, adjusted the footprint of our production network, and embarked on a longer journey to make our fixed cost structure more competitive and robust to better absorb market fluctuations.