Italian super luxury car maker Lamborghini is confident of getting back on the growth trajectory this year, surpassing 2019 sales in India, despite the resurgence in COVID-19 cases in the country, a senior company executive said.
Sharad Agarwal, head of Lamborghini India, said the company had got off to a positive start in 2021, with sales in the first two months already surpassing those during the pre-pandemic period.
“We are now seeing a lot more positivity in the market... the economic activity, the forecast for GDP, the stock market,” he said, on the factors driving growth.
“If you look at all the macro variables today, there is a very positive trend,” Mr. Agarwal added.
“We have already started a very strong vaccination drive...so all these things are giving confidence to the market, to the businesses that given the current trends and approach it does not look like there will be a major impact on business,” he added.
Mr. Agarwal said that earlier people were postponing purchases in the super luxury segment, “but with the pandemic, people are wanting to start living and enjoying their dreams because one can’t predict a disruption like this.” “We are seeing some discussions around this as well with new prospects and new customers,” he said.
The size of the super-luxury car segment, which largely comprises cars priced above ₹2 crore, stood at about 260 units in 2019 in India.
Interestingly, despite the pandemic, in 2020 Lamborghini delivered 7,430 cars worldwide, its second-best sales result ever following the record set in 2019 with 8,205 cars delivered.
Mr. Agarwal said the company had seen order bank coming back in the past 4-5 months, giving them the confidence “to do better than 2019.”
“2020 was an aberration where we all had challenges. In the last five months [October 2020-February 2021], we are plus 20% over the previous year [October 2019-February 2020], which was pre-COVID time,” he said.
In the last five months, we are plus 20% over the previous year, which was pre-COVID because we are talking of a period from October, November, December, January, February [2019],” he said. The company had sold 52 cars in India in 2019.
Mr. Agarwal added that the company was seeing a positive change in buyer profile as well and now 25% of its business was coming from beyond metros. “Similarly, earlier it was largely the second or third generation of business entrepreneurs who were buying our cars. Now we are seeing a good positive trend where in the first generation business entrepreneurs are buying our cars, even women are buying our product.”
Asked about plans to expand dealerships in India, Mr. Agarwal said, “We have three dealers in India — Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru...we feel that currently, the network is apt to handle the current businesses scale and volumes.”
“However, we are constantly evaluating and at an appropriate time, we may look at expanding into some cities but it will not happen in the short term. We want to keep our network profitable and sustainable and also have a balance with customer service and experience,” he added.
