Luxury cars outpace budget models in 2017, look to keep up tempo this year

Newly launched Mercedes AMG GLA 45 4MATIC Aero Edition

Growth in demand for luxury cars beat the growth in mass market cars as spooked buyers rushed to showrooms to beat the impending hike following GST implementation.

Sales of luxury cars zoomed to an estimated 15 percent to 38,630 units, the mass market cars segment comprising Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai among other grew by just 9 percent to 2.98 million units in 2017.

Luxury car market leader Mercedes-Benz, slated to  announce its numbers on Monday, may post sales close to or breach the 15,000 units mark, a new milestone for the German car maker in India. This is the second year in a row when Mercedes has held onto the top position in India’s luxury car ranking.

The Stuttgart-headquartered company clocked sales of 11,869 units during the nine months January-September last year, clocking a growth of 20 percent compared to 9,924 units sold in the same period in 2016.

Former India luxury car leader BMW closed the year marking a growth of 25 percent selling 9,800 units (including 421 Minis) as against 7,861 units sold in 2016.

BMW 340i GT M Sport Estorilblau

Vikram Pawah, President – BMW Group India, said: “ The year 2017 was a challenging year for the automotive industry in India and consumer confidence was low due to several policy fluctuations. We have created a differentiating factor in the Indian luxury car market with the strength of our brands, products and innovative customer initiatives.”

Audi, which slipped to number three in 2016, saw a growth of just 2 percent last year selling 7,876 units as compared to 7,742 units clocked.

This German company, which has completed 10 years in the country, had briefly scaled to number one position in 2013 beating BMW. Last year saw 10 launches from the brand with four rings including the A3 sedan, A3 cabriolet, Q3, A4 TDI, Q7 40 TFSI, A5, A5 cabriolet and S5 amongst others.

Rahil Ansari, head Audi India said, “We are now looking forward to the launch of the Audi Q5 in its new generation in January 2018. Apart from this, we promise to bring some more exhilarating cars for Audi enthusiasts this year. I know that many customers are waiting for this launch to buy their favourite SUV in a brand new avatar. I can promise that 2018 will be the year of some of the most exhilarating products from the Audi line-up”.

The biggest growth came from Tata Motors-controlled Jaguar Land Rover whose sales jumped 49 percent last year to 3954 units retaining the number four spot in the ranking. In 2016 the two brands had clocked 2,655 units sales.

Contribution to this growth came from almost all model lines starting with the Jaguar XE, followed by the XF, F-PACE, Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque. Demand also surged for the all-New Discovery, the top-of-the-line Range Rover Sport and the flagship of the Land Rover brand, the Range Rover.

2017 Range Rover Evoque

Rohit Suri, President & Managing Director, Jaguar Land Rover India said, “The increasing popularity of Jaguar Land Rover products is a great testimony to our focus on building a highly capable and customer friendly sales and service infrastructure to support these aspirational brands. We intend to sustain this fabulous momentum in 2018 with the launch of some exciting new products, the new Range Rover Velar being the first off the blocks in January 2018.”

Sales of sport car maker Porsche too headed north last year with the first nine month (Jan-Sep) sales outselling the number of 2016 during the same period. In 2016 the German car maker, controlled by Volkswagen sold 401 cars.

Swedish luxury car maker Volvo clocked sales in excess of 2,000 units last year, clocking a growth of 25 percent as against 1,600 sold in 2016. The company launched locally assembled XC 90 at its newly inaugurated plant in Bengaluru followed by the XC60 last month.