Luxury cars importers are relying on servicing activities inorder to keep their profit margins, considering that a technicalinspection of a Bentley, for instance, costs 500 euros, double asmuch as for a city car. The need to replace an older model with thebrand's "latest luxury product" is keeping alive the market of carscosting over 150,000 euros.
"Luxury clients have not changed, but they have become much moredemanding. They are waiting much longer before deciding to make apurchase. The market of luxury cars is still holding on, but it hasshrunk compared with the previous two years. However, this marketis still holding on," said Adrian Pascu, manager of the Bentley,Porsche, and Lamborghini brands within Porsche Romania, the largestautomotive importer on the Romanian market, which posted almost onebillion-euro turnover in 2008.
The luxury car segment is recording declines even above 50%, the"normal" average for the auto market this year, but importers are"rescued" by servicing activities.
"Service is very important right now. Out of the 200 Bentleymodels in Romania, we have around 175 cars registered in ourdatabase. By active clients we mean those who brought their carinto our servicing centre more than once," explained AdrianPascu.
The focus on the servicing segment is also specific to theFerrari brand, with importer Forza Rossa estimating that around onemillion of the 8 million-euro turnover comes from the servicingbusiness.
According to the Bentley manager, luxury brand sales are alsoaided by the launch of new models.
"Those who do buy, purchase newly-launched models, which usuallyreplace a car in their garage," said Pascu, adding that Porsche andBentley clients usually have at least another car of the samebrand.
Porsche started officially importing the Bentley brand in thethird quarter of last year, and had sold two cars by the end of2008. The most expensive car delivered by the importer this year isa Bentley Flying Spur Speed, costing around 210,000 euros,excluding VAT.
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