Mercedes-Benz Buyback Rolls On as Thin Margins and Six-Month EV Queues Tell Divergent Stories
Published on 10/26/2026 at 14:31 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Mercedes-Benz keeps writing cheques for its own stock even as the underlying car business sputters. The Stuttgart group disclosed on Monday that it bought back 1,145,820 shares over the past week, bringing the total repurchased since 1 September to 6,487,389 — the eighth interim update on the programme. The stock added 2.0% on the day, though the move cannot be pinned squarely on the buyback notice.
What the repurchase does not do is answer the operational question. Analysts, according to Handelsblatt, see a profit warning as a live possibility — a risk rather than any confirmed decision by management. The unadjusted return on sales at the car division came in at just 0.2% in the second quarter of 2026, leaving chief executive Ola Källenius with little room to manoeuvre. His response, the report says, combines cost cutting, production shifts to lower-wage countries, new manufacturing methods and autonomous vehicles, alongside a model offensive meant to engineer the turn.
Deliveries Heading the Wrong Way
The scale of the challenge is visible in the volume figures. Mercedes-Benz Cars shipped 407,200 vehicles worldwide in the third quarter of 2026, down 8% year on year, with weakness in China weighing heavily on the total. Over the first nine months of 2026, deliveries reached 1.24 million passenger cars — 7% below the same period a year earlier.
Against that backdrop, the buyback is no proof that sales and earnings power have stabilised. Investors will get a clearer read this week: Mercedes-Benz is among the companies reporting in the DPA weekly outlook, an event likely to say more about the operating position than the steady drip of repurchase disclosures.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Mercedes-Benz?
A Bright Spot With a Waiting List
Not every corner of the portfolio is struggling. Customers configuring an electric CLA or GLC to their own specification face waits of roughly six months, according to media reports, with some orders placed in October not due for delivery until April 2027. That backlog points to genuine demand for the new electric models — a counterweight to the broader sales decline, though hardly enough on its own to signal a recovery in the car business.
The CLA in particular has found traction. Since its market launch in September 2025, the model has notched more than 71,000 registrations in Europe, Handelsblatt and Dataforce report — an average of about 5,400 a month. That beats the monthly registration level of its combustion-engine predecessor, which averaged around 3,500 units per month between 2021 and 2024. Battery production is running hot as well: the Kamenz plant has operated three shifts a day, six days a week, since June.
Long order books cut both ways. They signal a healthy pipeline while pushing back delivery of newly ordered cars, so the task for Mercedes-Benz is converting demand into vehicles in customers' hands. Nor do extended lead times say anything yet about the profitability of the new models.
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Product Renewal Still Over the Horizon
The next wave of the offensive remains some way off. Dealers expect the electric E-Class to be unveiled at the IAA in autumn 2027, with an electric A-Class due to reach the market in 2028. A cabriolet version of the G-Class is also anticipated for autumn 2027, a smaller g-Class for 2028, and further AMG variants are to be presented in 2027. All of these are expectations rather than completed launches — meaning much of the hoped-for product renewal still lies ahead.
For shareholders, the picture is therefore split down the middle: a buyback that continues regardless, a margin near zero, a China-driven slide in group volumes, and an electric lineup whose order books are full but whose contribution to overall earnings has yet to be proven. Whether growing EV demand can increasingly offset the decline elsewhere is the question the coming results will begin to answer.
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