GENOA, Italy, Feb 15 (Reuters) - A senior DaimlerChrysler AG official said in an interview published on Sunday that the company had "limited optimism, not actual enthusiasm" with regards to worldwide auto demand this year.
The German automaker believes growth in the U.S. car market will depend on sales incentives "because the market has been drugged with incentives," Mercedes chief Juergen Hubbert said in an interview in Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.
In Europe, he said there were few positive signals in the key markets of Germany, France and Italy, while he expected China to be the growth engine for Asia.
Aside from China, Juergen Hubbert was quoted as saying he saw Brazil and India as the most promising emerging markets.
"Brazil because in the past we always invested and we continue to commit funds above all in the industrial vehicle sector, hoping that in the next years an intese growth process will be kicked off," he said.
He said Mercedes currently had limited production of its E Class model in India but that the company hoped "that favourable development like in China" could follow.
Hubbert said he was not worried that the move by Mercedes and other luxury carmakers into mass-market segments would dilute their premium brands.
"We are convinced that the premium brand doesn't depend on the price or market segment but exclusively on quality," he said. "Even with volumes which have hit 1.1 million autos, our brand has always stayed exclusive."