Luxury cars find plenty of buyers

Though they retail for four billion dong ($220,000) or so, the Porsche Cayenne S2011, BMW X6 and Mercedes S550 are selling well in Vietnam. The newest models of luxury cars arrive at Saigon Port every week, only a few months after their launch onto the world market, reports the HCM City newspaper, Tuoi Tre.

Car importers confirm that the number of ‘super cars’ imported to Vietnam over the last few years has risen significantly. Most luxury brands now have sales agents and distributors in Vietnam.

‘Special care’

Rolling out the new Audi Q5 model in HCM City recently, Director General Laurent Genet of A Chau Company, the authorized distributor of Audi series in Vietnam, commented on the Audi’s remarkable success in Vietnam. The brand name has developed very rapidly, faster than in countries where Audi has been present for the last many years.

Genet says Audi now puts Vietnam on a par with other regional developed countries, and Audi headquarters in Germany gives the Vietnam market ‘special care.’

Audi’s Q5, introduced in Vietnam with a sticker price of 1.84 billion dong, has been selling so well that eleven cars headed for the Philippines have been rerouted to HCM City. People who ordered the Q5 in May must wait till August for delivery.

General Director Tran Tan Trung at Lien A International, an Audi distributor, says sales have doubled this year. “Our clients are typically 21 to 35 years-old, Trung adds.

Then there’s the Maybach 62S supercar. Of the four $500,000 Maybach 62S sedans built so far in 2009, it’s said, two – one white, one black — have shown up in HCM City.

For those interested in something a little more sporty that also screams ‘money,’ four black Ferrari 458 Italia two-seaters are reportedly enroute to Vietnam where, after tax is applied, they’ll sell for $600,000.

Double digit growth rates

Among the 23,000 fully-assembled autos imported in the first half of 2010 – costing the nation some $394 million in foreign exchange — it seems that hardly any luxury cars were overlooked. At an exhibition in May, many people paid attention to the two seat Mercedes SLS gullwing AMG selling, after taxes, for 8.4 billion dong ($462,000).

Car dealers said that the car was imported by Mercedes Benz Vietnam for a young client who then changed his mind. However, the importer had no trouble finding another buyer. In May, as soon as it introduced models priced from 1.4 billion to 4 billion dong, Mercedes Benz signed 100 contracts.

Further, after introducing the Model E 250 CGI BlueEfficiency last December, Benz sold 200 of the 1.7 billion dong ($87,000) sedans within two months. Similarly, Euro Auto, the importer of BMW cars, claims to have sold 50 Series 5 sedans priced at 1.9-2.3 billion dong.

The importers and distributors of these luxury cars are on a roll. They say that the business plans set for the Vietnam’s market can always be fulfilled. As proof, they point to double-digit sales growth even in 2009, a difficult year for they world economy.

Tags: Vietnam automotive, Vietnam automotive industry, Vietnam autos market, Vietnam car imports