Credit: Special Arrangement
German luxury car maker Audi has recorded 97 per cent year-on-year sales growth in its India market in the first six months of the fiscal, its India head Balbir Singh Dhillon told DH during an interaction.
Talking about the company’s expectations going ahead, Dhillon said: “I think we will definitely deliver good high double-digit growth for the whole of this fiscal year.
The marque carmaker, on Friday, launched a new pre-owned car facility Audi Approved: plus in Bengaluru, Karnataka for the sale and purchase of pre-owned luxury cars. This is the company’s 25th such store, and it aims to launch 2 more before the end of 2023 along with its 29 new car stores across India. The company’s pre-owned car showrooms have seen 53 per cent growth in the January-June 2023 period, Dhillon informed.
“Car prices have gone up significantly in the last 3-5 years, luxury car prices have gone up by around 30 per cent, creating a void between non-luxury and luxury. Through our Audi-approved plus business, we are expanding our base at the bottom,” he said
“There is a thumb rule in the automotive business that for every new car sold, there are almost three pre-owned cars sold. But in India, a large part of the pre-owned car businesses is in the unorganised sector. We are trying to get a part of that business into authorised retailing,” he added.
Audi, which reported a 27 per cent rise in its retail sales in India at 4,187 units in 2022, has already sold 3,474 cars in H1 2023. Interestingly, 60 per cent of the company’s sales come from its SUV segment.
The luxury segment in India is currently a little over 1 per cent of the overall car segment. India will sell about 3.95 billion cars this year, with luxury cars in the range of about 46,000- 47,000, Dhillon suggested.
According to Dhillon, there is even more potential for the luxury car segment, growing on the back of growing purchasing power and infrastructure development in the country.
“Penetration of motorisation is still at a very low level in India, with less than 30 cars for every 1000 people. If over a decade, we reach 60-70 cars per 1000 people that means the industry itself is doubling and on top of that the luxury segment penetration goes up from one to 2 per cent,” he added.
The carmaker launched its first electric car in India two years ago, and today six out of the 15 cars in Audi India’s portfolio are EVs. According to Dhillon, Audi’s penetration into electric mobility is between 2-3 per cent.
“We are only addressing a very limited segment because as of now the cars that we’re selling are fully imported cars and they come with the highest possible import duties making them expensive. As we grow into more segments, the volumes will grow,” he explained, adding that while electric mobility is growing, it is slower (as low as 5 per cent) in the luxury car space.
On localisation plans for electric cars, Dhillon said, “We are working with our headquarters to look at which models should be manufactured or assembled in India. We will pick and choose which models are best suited for the country and those models, whenever they make a positive business case, we will start assembling.”