Luxury German marque, Mercedes-Benz leads the sales charts for most popular Category A brand after the first quarter of 2014 - despite the tweak made to the small car category from February 2014.

For the first quarter, Mercedes registered a total of 542 Cat A cars - amounting to a 21.4 percent market share. According to The Business Times, the German marque is likely to dominate the Cat A segment during this period of high COE premiums.

However, in contrast, the Toyota Corolla Altis - with 248 units registered in the first quarter - earned the top spot as Singapore's most popular model. The Mercedes-Benz C180 is the Cat A runner up, with 210 units sold. In 2012, the turbocharged 1.6-litre C-Class - rated at 156bhp - was Singapore's top model overall that year.

The aim of the re-categorisation - introduced early this year - was to retain Cat A for mass market (usually Japanese) models, and to keep out luxury models - a reason believed to be the cause of high Cat A premiums.

Yet, two luxury marques, Audi and Mercedes, have been able to stay in Cat A - thanks to new engines which have less than 130bhp - as in the case of the Audi A3, and Mercedes', A-Class, B-Class and CLA-Class.

The Mercedes-Benz C180, rated at 156bhp, can still be registered with a Cat A COE - if it was secured before February 2014. The local business daily predicts the star-in-a-circle marque will likely continue to dominate the small car segment for the rest of the year - because of three popular models - especially the CLA180 with a 122bhp lump.

According to a sales manager of a rival brand, the business daily spoke to, he believes the Mercedes-Benz branding is what attracts buyers, rather than the CLA-Class' styling. He believes the background of Mercedes buyers are basically unchanged - relatively conservative and slightly more mature with a higher disposable income.