Daimler first announced their goal of becoming the world’s biggest and most profitable luxury automaker back in 2011, back when, according to brand CEO Dieter Zetsche, everyone laughed at that announcement.

And yet, the Daimler boss said “we will achieve it this year, four years ahead of time,” which in turn means putting the Mercedes brand on top for the first time since 2005, when it lost its position to BMW.

Mercedes is currently on track to sell over 2 million cars this year, after registering a 12% sales growth in the first 10 months alone, thus outpacing BMW’s 5.5% rise.

Last month, Mercedes sales rose 13%, hitting 182,602 units – stated the automaker on Tuesday, taking 11-month deliveries to a whooping 1.89 million.

The brand is also on track to win the US luxury sales title, finishing the year-to-date through November having sold 18,000 more vehicles than Lexus and with 28,000 units more than BMW, as reported by Autonews.

Backing Mercedes’ growth has been in part their compact car range expansion, which in turn also helped the automaker meet its 10% return on sales target.

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