Daimler sells 2.5m cars

German automaker Daimler AG reported record unit sales of 2.5 million in 2014, 8 percent higher than that in 2014, the company said Thursday.

The increase was mainly driven by sales of Mercedes-Benz cars and vans, the company said at a press conference in Stuttgart, Germany, the company's headquarters.

Unit sales of the Mercedes-Benz (including AMG and Maybach) and the smart brand increased by 10 percent to a record of 1.72 million units in 2014. In China, the company sold 288,006 units of Mercedes-Benz and smart cars in China last year, up 26 percent.