‘Super sports car segment in India is more about emerging trends’

In the rarified world of super luxury and super performance sports cars, competition is heating up. The numbers have been rising steadily despite the regulatory and taxation-related problems faced by the brands in the business. Last year’s demonetisation and the resultant uncertain economic atmosphere was just one such issue. Lamborghini's penetration in this segment in the Indian market has been significant, even though the number of cars delivered may be only in the low double digits. Sharad Agarwal, Head of Automobili Lamborghini India, spoke to BusinessLine at the sidelines of the launch of the Aventador S, Lamborghini's latest super car. Excerpts:

What is your perspective about the super car performance category in India and how do you think it is going to shape up?

I believe the super sports car segment in India is still evolving. In fact, we had a period from 2011 to 2014 the segment was declining because of consistent increase duties and tax structures.

But the good news is that in 2015 we saw marginal growth coming back, and in 2016, we saw a healthy double-digit growth in the segment. These are the very positive trends for us and we anticipate this growth trend to continue because there is a lot of stability in the tax structure and the economy is growing well and lot of positive sentiments are on. Also, the super sports car segment today in India is more about emerging trends and not about numbers as long as the segment is growing. So, there are exciting trends which we are witnessing today.

For example, initially we used to see that most of the people buying these cars were second and third generation entrepreneurs. But now, we see first generation entrepreneurs are also coming and buying these cars.

Earlier, buyers were mainly from the metro cities, but now we see an increasing trend of people from smaller, tier II and III buying these cars.

Luxury car makers had recent issues like tax raids in China which pushed buyers to cut back and put on hold some of their purchase decisions. A similar issue was demonetisation in India. How did DeMo affect Lambo? Does it continue to be a cause for worry?

We saw the impact in November 2016 and it was I think one of the biggest disruptions in the Indian economy, I think, since Independence. Because there was a lot of chaos.

But thankfully, by the second half of December 2016 we started seeing the market coming back. I don't see any impact in the segment and we are back in normal business and enquiries are coming in as are bookings.

I think it was a phase which created a disruption for us too, but that was temporary.

With Lamborghini's limited production run worldwide, do you worry if allocations for India would affect your ability to cater to future growth?

India is one of the strategic future growth markets for Lamborghini. And yes, while the volumes today are small, we always get preference in the factory when it comes to allocating cars or meeting our requirements in the market. Also the factory understands that India has one of the most evolved buyers. The kind of customisation buyers ask for in India matches the standards of evolved customers across the globe. So they understand the complexities of the Indian market. That is the reason why Lamborghini took a step in 2012 to make an investment in the country.

They decided to create a structure and a team in India which can take care of the local market requirements. Today, we have two models which are — the Huracan and Aventador. But with the introduction of the third product from the family - Lamborghini is going to launch a SUV in 2018 - and once it reaches steady state of production, we expect to double our volumes over 2015 achievements. It will be a perfect car for four and will open up a new segment of customers for us.

Do you actively encourage your customers, many of whom may be first-time super car buyers, to consider going for driving training?

We don’t call it driver training, but yes an enhancement of skills for better handling the car. We have got a fleet of cars in India and have done this experience program at the F1 track in BIC. We also did a programme in Bahrain where we took a set of customers and prospects to the race track there and gave them an experience.

With an increase in the number of buyers from tier II and III cities, would you say that with the current network of dealers you are logistically well positioned to cater to all these customers?

We have three dealer partners in India - Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, and we believe that we are located very strategically as per the current market requirement. These partners are very evolved and understand the requirements and expectations of the buyers. In fact, we have an interesting programme by which we annually do a service clinic for all our customers where we fly a technician from our Italian factory who works with the local team and they visit every customer, checks the car and delivers a certificate that everything is fine with the car.

Is Lamborghini India also in the pre-owned business?

Yes, we have a pre-owned programme in India. And we also have warranties for our pre-owned cars wherein our engineers can certify the cars.

The pre-owned car can be used by the same customer with the same complete peace of mind offered by a new car. Pre-owned helps us bring them into the family.

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