Mumbai: Automobili Lamborghini India Pvt. Ltd, the Indian arm of the Italian super luxury sports car maker, expects sales to grow at a fast clip in the country in the next two years as positive economic indicators and a stable policy environment fuel growth in a segment which counts ultra high net-worth individuals (UHNIs) as its target customers.
“We now see a consistent policy with no major drastic changes happening. This will help stabilize the market and get it into a growth phase,” said Sharad Agarwal, head of Lamborghini India, on Friday.
He was speaking on the sidelines of the launch of the Lamborghini Aventador S in Mumbai. Priced at Rs5 crore, this is the second of three models the Italian sports car maker has lined up for India in the current year.
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It launched the Huracan Spyder RWD (rear wheel drive) last month and will be bringing another model from the Huracan family later this year, Agarwal added.
A total of 90 super luxury cars (priced above Rs1 crore) were sold in India in calendar year 2011. Over the next four years, he said, volumes went downhill, showing growth only last year—75 units sold in 2016 against 60 the previous year.
The other players in the super luxury cars space include Ferrari from the Fiat Group, Masserati SpA, Bentley Motors Ltd and Porsche from the Volkswagen Group.
“The way the industry is growing, we see the segment reaching the three-digit mark in the next two years,” Agarwal said.
In India, import duty on luxury cars is at 170% but the actual cost comes to two-and-a-half times the import value, he said.
Despite this, Lamborghini has already run out of the allotted number of units of the Aventador S for India, he said, declining to go into specifics.
He did state that four out of 10 super luxury cars that sell in India is a Lamborghini.
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No two Lamborghini cars are the same, on account of the high level of customisation sought by buyers, Agarwal pointed out. The average cost of customising a car ranges from 15-20% of its import value.
In a departure from the trend of past years, when only second- and third-generation entrepreneurs would buy their cars, lately even first-generation entrepreneurs have started entering the market, Agarwal said. Also, unlike in other markets where many professionals buy Lamborghinis, in India, the buyers mostly come from family-run businesses, he added.
India ranks sixth in terms of the growth rate of UHNIs in 2016. At the current pace, the country is expected to move up to the third spot over the next decade, global property consultant Knight Frank LLP said in the 11th edition of The Wealth Report 2017, which was released on Wednesday. The number of UHNIs in India increased by 290% during the last decade, it added.
