Berlin, Apr 5 (IANS): German luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz sustained a strong sales momentum into the first quarter of the new year, as it posted in March its strongest single-monthly sales record ever, a company official said.

To date, the world's top brand luxury car maker has sold a total of 313,902 Mercedes-Benz passenger cars during the first quarter of 2012, with March towering as the strongest sales month in the company's history.

"Besides our excellent start to the year, it is especially the great customer's response on the new models which makes me very confident that we will achieve our goal to post a new sales record in 2012," said Joachim Schmidt, executive vice president of sales and marketing, Mercedes-Benz.

He also expressed optimism that with the start of production of the new B-Class last week in Kecskemet, Hungary, Mercedes-Benz will have even more vehicles available to better meet the high demand.

A total of 313,902 vehicles were delivered to customers, an increase of 11.9 percent over the same period last year, as the sales in March rose by 11 percent to 131,334 units, according to the statistics shown by the Stuttgart-based car manufacturer.