Mercedes-Benz Cars at the CES in Las Vegas - Speech Britta Seeger

Totally do agree, ladies and gentlemen. As you can see, artificial intelligence and emotion merge seamlessly at Mercedes. Maybe sometimes as well. Well, this beautiful car has everything that makes a consumer product successful: technology, design, and real-world benefits. That's why so many people around the globe really loved the CLA right from the beginning in 2013, and it created a new segment as a four-door coupe compact coupe. Since its introduction, it has become a real bestseller. Today we've sold up to 750,000 units of the CLA and CLS Shooting Brake. In 2018, the CLA coupe even set an all-time sales record, and in the U.S., the conquest rate is particularly high. At its peak, about 70% of the CLA buyers in the U.S. were won over from other brands. And that was made before we make this even better. Ola already mentioned the further improved MDX. Moreover, the new CLA offers the latest driving assistant systems from the S-Class. For example, the car is now able to drive partly autonomously in certain situations. The car also has aerodynamics with an outstanding CD value of 0.23. So what does that mean? Well, with this car, we have pretty much the same aerodynamics as two-time Ironman winner Jan Frodeno on his racing bike. Ladies and gentlemen, we are confident that the new CLA will be loved by our customers again. It will further strengthen our brand, which has already established itself among the best in the world. Do you need proof points? As announced by the U.S. brand consulting company Interbrand, we entered the top 10 of the world's most valuable brands in 2018. Mercedes-Benz is now the highest ranked premium car manufacturer in the world. And this is mainly due to our amazing customers all around the planet who are fond of our products as well as the universe around the three-pointed star. Millions of them are following us on social networks such as WeChat and Instagram. And most recently, they led us to a new record. Mercedes-Benz is the very first brand to reach 1 billion interactions on Instagram. That's a 1 with 9 zeros of likes and comments. And we are very proud and thankful for this. Ladies and gentlemen, as you may know, next to the SUV segment, the compact segment is our main sales driver. Every fourth car we sell is a compact car. And thanks also to the sales success of our compact cars, in 2018 Mercedes-Benz succeeded once again in breaking the record set the previous year. In 2018, we delivered more than 2.4 million vehicles to customers worldwide. Despite difficult market conditions, increasing challenges facing the entire automotive industry, and a competitive environment, we stayed on top from month to month. With this result, we are very happy to announce our eighth record year in a row. And the icing on the cake: for the third time in a row, we are the best-selling premium brand worldwide. That's an achievement our whole team is extremely proud of. We have much to be proud of going forward as well. As you might know, in 26 days America's most important sporting event will kick off at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta under the world's largest three-pointed star. But until then, I wish you a great start in 2019 and a very exciting stay here at the CES. That is, if our chatty friends here can keep from interrupting again. Thank you very much.