Daimler Annual Shareholders' Meeting: "We are on a path of profitable growth"

• Chairman of the Board of Management Dr. Dieter Zetsche: "Our company is operating successfully"

• Affirmation of earnings forecast for 2011

• Mercedes-Benz Cars achieves 12% growth in unit sales in first quarter

• Daimler Trucks increases first-quarter unit sales by 27%

• Shareholders approve dividend of €1.85 per share

Daimler AG continues to operate successfully this year. "We are on a path of profitable growth," said Dr. Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, according to the text of his speech today to approximately 5,200 shareholders at the International Conference Center in Berlin. "We announced that we would emerge from the crisis with a lot of torque. We have kept our word: Actual developments were even more positive than expected," explained Zetsche.

In the first three months of 2011, the Daimler Group once again sold more vehicles than in the prior-year period. First-quarter unit sales by the Mercedes-Benz Cars division grew by 12% compared with the first quarter of 2010.

This growth is being driven by nearly all automobile classes. Unit sales of the S-Class were up by 24% and of the E-Class by 18%. Meanwhile, the product offensive started by Mercedes-Benz Cars in 2010 is beginning to peak. The launch of the new-generation
C-Class and the new SLK in early 2011 will be followed in autumn by the new M-Class and by the new B-Class, the first of four new models in the compact segment.

From today's perspective, the Group anticipates unit sales of more than 1.2 million automobiles solely of Mercedes-Benz brand in the full year. Including smart, unit sales should exceed 1.3 million. "We want to make our anniversary year a record year as well," stated Zetsche. With their inventions 125 years ago, Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz laid the foundations for the present Daimler Group.

The Daimler Trucks division sold 90,000 vehicles in the first quarter, representing an increase of 27% over the prior-year period. In Europe, unit sales grew above all in Germany, France and Turkey. Unit sales by Trucks NAFTA increased by 32%, while increases were also recorded in Latin America.

The volume of orders received by Daimler Trucks in the first quarter of 2011 was 65% above the prior-year level. With the exception of Japan, the upswing should accelerate in all major markets in the coming months. The NAFTA market in particular is developing more positively than was assumed at the beginning of the year. Daimler now anticipates market growth of 30-35%.

With an increase in unit sales of 16%, Mercedes-Benz Vans also achieved strong growth in the first quarter. At Daimler Buses, the development of major markets in the first quarter was weaker than in the prior-year period. But the division expects to produce significantly more buses in the second half of the year than in the first. Daimler Financial Services expanded its new business by 11% and its contract volume at the end of March was 3% higher than a year earlier.

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