World's rich flooring it in post-pandemic high end car rush
03 June, 2021
The global rebound from the coronavirus pandemic is revving extravagance carmakers' sales to never-before-seen heights, as order books at famous brands Lamborghini, Ferrari and Rolls-Royce burst with demand from the world's wealthy.
Exactly like regular earners all over the world, the richest scale back on usage during 2020, with "double-digit" falls in revenue for makers of the most coveted automobiles, says Felipe Munoz of market research firm Jato Dynamics.
But "consumers for these cars weren't as exposed as other folks" to the crisis' financial fallout, he adds.
For the wealthy, "the majority of the problem was that they couldn't escape their houses," Munoz says. "They postponed their buys."
The rebound for exclusive cars had been underway in the final quarter of 2020 because they reached for his or her platinum bank cards again, cushioning the pandemic blow in comparison to mass-market manufacturers.
Annual sales this past year at Volkswagen-possessed Lamborghini sped previous their 2019 record to 7,430 vehicles, motivated by the Italian manufacturer's hefty Urus SUV clocking on at around 200,000 euros ($220,000).
Closed factories meant sales at Ferrari tumbled 10 percent this past year, to 9,119.
But bosses say the black-horse brand now comes with an "order e book at record levels", driven by the 450,000-euro SF90 Stradale -- the carmaker's first plug-in hybrid -- along with the windscreen-free of charge two-seater Monza, believed to expense around 1.7 million euros.
Ferrari hopes to best the 10,000-unit mark next 12 months, when it becomes the ultimate luxury producer to provide an SUV with the Purosangue.
"The blissful luxury market still has extremely specific rules and buyers," Deloitte car industry analyst Guillaume Crunelle says.
"Behavior is much more associated with personal situations, how their riches is developing, instead of market trends."
After a year with significantly less consumption, "there is very some cash around to be spent," Rolls-Royce leader Torsten Muller-Otvos tells AFP.
On the other hand, the BMW subsidiary's boss likewise sees the effects of the pandemic on people's buying patterns.
"Quite a lot of our clientele said that Covid educated them that life can end easily tomorrow and now is time to take pleasure from your life."
The other day the historic British company launched a yacht-inspired model, the Boat Tail, which it has up to now built just three systems -- and won't reveal the purchase price.
Muller-Otvos says that the new car is "a lot more refined" than its last custom build, the Sweptail, which expense around $13 million.
Going to China
Rolls-Royce's one-offs notwithstanding, most even among the priciest makers swept along in tendencies just like the unstoppable march of the SUV -- and an environment-conscious move to electrification, Deloitte's Crunelle points out.
Jato Dynamics' examination showed that sports cars manufactured up just five percent of extravagance sales this past year, while SUVs' industry share outpaced coupes for the first time.
In Britain, Bentley and McLaren let go thousands of employees as the virus outbreak started -- limited to Bentley to book record revenue of 11,000 units driven by the 200,000-euro Bentayga SUV.
Rolls-Royce saw its best-ever quarter found in early 2021, powered by its New Ghost coupe and 2.6-tonne, 350,000-euro Cullinan SUV -- the most expensive on the market.
And James Bond favorite Aston Martin has returned from the brink of personal bankruptcy using its almost equally chunky DBX.
Looking ahead, "production for this year is totally booked," Rolls-Royce's Muller-Otvos says.
Europe and North American remain solid marketplaces for luxury brands, but China is where the majority of the growth can be found.
"It's the world's leading region for wealth setting up, and cars are still an extremely potent mark of status," Crunelle says.
Munoz predicts that "with an increase of and more millionaires and billionaires (in China) every year, the trend will probably continue".
Source: japantoday.com
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