Luxury car market grows with young, wealthy buyers
The super luxury vehicle market in Sri Lanka is growing with the emergence of a new class of high spending wealthy buyers despite a drastic drop in vehicle imports during the last two years.
Most of the super luxury vehicles imported are Montero Sport, KIA/Hyundai SUV, BMW X 1, X 3, 520D and Audi A 4 and A6, Porsches, Turbo, Jaguars and Mercedes. Two Lamborghinis were also among them, officials said.
These super luxury cars have been bought by young businessmen and sons of politicians or sons of businessmen with high political connections using leasing facilities obtained from major state-owned leasing companies, a survey conducted by motor traders revealed.
Meanwhile in response to the changing Mercedes-Benz customer dynamics and with the increase in demand, Diesel and Motor Engineering Plc (DIMO), the franchise holder of Mercedes-Benz, has re-launched MercedesCard, the co-branded credit card in partnership with Sampath Bank PLC., the company revealed.
Mercedes-Benz Visa Signature Card provides several exclusive offers including an overseas Travel Insurance cover up to US$ 500,000, and a minimum credit limit of Rs. 750,000. The government has incurred a loss in tax revenue of Rs. 8.5 million on a Montero Sport, Rs.6 million on a KIA SUV, Rs.13 million on a BMW X1/X3 and Rs.20 million on a BMW 520D as these vehicles had been brought down with duty free permits, they revealed.
The reduced duty prices for these vehicles were between Rs.6.5 million and Rs.9.5 million, respectively.
According to Motor Traffic Department statistics, Sri Lanka’s registrations of BMW luxury cars have risen 280 per cent in January 2013 from a year ago.
They disclosed that registrations of brand new BMW cars rose by 281 per cent to 84 in January 2013 from 22 a year earlier with 82 being 5-Series models.
Registrations of brand new Mercedes cars rose 23 per cent in January 2013 from a year earlier
Officials revealed that two Lamborghinis have been imported by a local vehicle company from Singapore and one of the vehicles was bought with leasing facilities from a state-owned leasing company by a son of businessmen who owns private television channel.
One official said “with powerful political backing a new automobile company a subsidiary of an existing vehicle firm has been established to import sports cars like Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Jaguars, Aston Martins and racing cars including go-carts”.
The price of a Lamborghini is in the region of Rs.120 million with tax.
The newly emerged high spending young business class is wielding immense political clout and no one knows the exact nature of their business, a senior official who wished to be anonymous told Business Times.
However a few of them are big time business brokers and wheeler dealers, he said adding that these youth are playing with others money.
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