Record results for Daimler's anniversary year

German auto and truck giant Daimler, which owns Mercedes-Benz, said Thursday it achieved record sales and profits in 2011, its 125th anniversary year. Daimler said in a statement it booked bottom-line net profit of 6.029 billion euros ($8.0 billion) in 2011, a leap of 29 percent from the previous year. Underlying profit, as measured by earnings before interest and tax (EBIT), jumped 20 percent to 8.755 billion euros. Unit sales were up 11 percent at 2.111 million cars and revenues grew by 9.0 percent to 106.5 billion euros, the group said. "We achieved our best-ever results in 2011 for unit sales, revenue, EBIT and net profit. All of our divisions contributed to this success," boasted chief executive Dieter Zetsche. The Mercedes-Benz Cars division also "never performed better than in 2011," setting new records for sales, revenue and underlying profit, he said. In the fourth quarter alone, net profit soared 57 percent to 1.785 billion euros and revenues climbed 10 percent to 29.066 billion euros. Looking ahead o the current year, Daimler said that -- assuming global industry-wide growth of 4.0 percent, driven primarily by emerging markets in Asia -- it expected unit sales to "increase again significantly this year and that revenue will also continue to grow." In terms of profits, underlying earnings were expected to match last year's level, Daimler added.