Lexus leads Q1 U.S. luxury car sales, up 42% in March

Toyota Motor Corp.'s Lexus increased its U.S. sales 42 percent in March to finish the first quarter with the luxury-vehicle lead over Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz.

Lexus sold 20,219 cars and sport-utility vehicles last month and 49,523 for the quarter, according to a statement today. Mercedes reported sales of 19,637 for March, a 26 percent increase from a year earlier, and 49,229 for the quarter.

Toyota's division has been the top seller of luxury vehicles in the U.S. on an annual basis for 10 years in a row. Mercedes, helped by its revamped E-Class sedan, had moved ahead of Lexus and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG through 2010's first two months. The BMW brand posted a 3.1 percent increase in March to 18,060 and finished the quarter at 46,323.

"The luxury market is doing pretty well," said Jessica Caldwell, a senior analyst at Edmunds.com, a Santa Monica, California-based provider of industry data. "We assumed when times were tough that luxury sales would fall. It has held its share of the market."

Lexus benefited from a tripling of sales of its redesigned GX mid-size SUV, as well as increases of 30 percent for the RX sport-utility vehicle and 29 percent for the IS car, according to the statement from Toyota City, Japan-based Toyota.

At Mercedes, sales of the E-Class more than doubled while the C-Class, its highest-volume model, rose 20 percent, the unit of Stuttgart, Germany-based Daimler said in a statement.