Super car sales spike due to revenge spending
IN a recent online launch of BMW’s Greenhills flagship dealer, Ramon S. Ang, Chairman and CEO of SMC Asia Car Distributors Corporation revealed that sales of luxury and expensive sports cars have spiked since last year due to the pandemic. “Sales of Ferrari, Lamborghini and other exotic cars have increased, not just here, but globally. Maybe the superrich have nothing better to do because Covid have grounded most them. They are not allowed to travel, so might as well spend it on something that will make them happy or distract them,” he said.
A report from Bloomberg confirmed Ang’s statement (who showed the media one of his sports car, a TVR Griffith), companies such as Porsche have reported robust sales figures for 2020, so does Italian powerhouse Ferrari and BMW whose M variants are flying off showroom floors.
While the rest of the automotive industry are struggling and coming out with different marketing and sales promotions to keep their heads above water, marquee brands are raking it in. British luxury brand Bentley said that their sales are at 30 percent above in comparison to the same period last year, bearing in mind that last year was a record in sales. “It would take more than a pandemic to knock us off track again,” stated a Bentley executive.
Stephan Winkelmann of Bugatti shared his views about the company’s performance last year, “We are happy that 2020 was our third record breaking year in a row.” Said Winkelmann. Oliver Blume of Porsche also revealed that last year was an excellent accomplishment to an ex
ceptional year. Aston Martin on the other hand was glad to report that the company is no longer in the red, saying that 2020 was a good year for the British icon.
The same report also stated that Ferrari’s share price jumped by 27 percent, while Lamborghini’s order book is already full until the fourth quarter of this year. The San Miguel CEO, who is a known car collector said that the rich are simply bored. “They are just stuck at home with nothing else to do. So why not buy a supercar instead, whose value will increase anyway,” he said.
JBR Capital, one of Europe’s leading finance provider reported that an unprecedented demand for supercars was recorded last March. Popular models were the Ferrari 488 GTB and the McLaren 570 S. Darren Selig, Founder and Chief Commercial Officer for JBR Capital also said that Porsche proved to be the most financed marquee last month, with the allelectric Taycan generating a large number of proposals as interest in electric vehicles showed no signs of abating.
The only luxury brand that suffered from the pandemic is Rolls Royce, whose deliveries dropped by 26 percent yearover-year for 2020. The cause was attributed to the transition from the old Ghost to the new version, which had an eye-popping price tag, big blind spots and soft brake pedal feel.