Mercedes-Benz has officially taken home the title as the best selling luxury automaker in the United States beating out last year’s winner, BMW.

In total, the automaker sold 340,237 vehicles locally throughout 2016 which interestingly, is actually 0.8 per cent lower than 2015. Additionally, it managed to claim the title despite December sales falling by 6.4 per cent to 32,011 vehicles.

The only reason why Mercedes-Benz managed to secure the sales crown for the first time since 2013 is that its key rivals suffered larger drops in sales.

In fact, sales for BMW slipped by 9.5 per cent to 313,174 vehicles in 2014 while Lexus sales fell by 3.9 per cent to 331,228, allowing it to snap up second position.

Interestingly, Audi was the only of the three German luxury automakers to improve its sales as they rose by 4 per cent to 210,213 vehicles.

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