Porsche To Investors: We Need Dealerships In Africa

By Dana Sanchez

 

South Africa is Porsche’s largest market in its 19-country Middle East & Africa region, beating out Dubai, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Qatar, according to a Reuters report in IndependentOnline.

Now the luxury-car maker, owned by Volkswagen, seeks investors to set up showrooms and service centers all across the continent to increase sales and capitalize on Africa’s booming growth.

Porsche’s Dubai-based regional unit, its fourth-largest subsidiary globally, already has centers in Angola, Nigeria and Ghana.

Porsche has loyal, long-term customers in South Africa who keep coming back for more Porsches, said Public Relations Manager Anja Wood. Their fascination with the luxury vehicles “works over there in a very good way for us,” she said.

In the first three quarters of 2013, Porsche sold 1,800 cars in South Africa, 50 percent more than a year ago and a fifth of all vehicles delivered by the company in the region.

It sold 8,719 new cars total in the region, which includes India and Pakistan – 38 percent more than the previous year, IndependentOnline reports.

“We don’t expect a second South Africa in the African continent,” Wood said. “We are careful with our wishes and future planning, but we want to increase our presence because we want to make cars available to people where we are not yet present.”

Slumping auto demand in European markets, where Volkswagen sells almost 40 percent of its models, resulted in seven straight quarters of falling sales, Reuters reports.

Based in Stuttgart, Porsche’s 15-percent sales growth helped prop up parent Volkswagen’s nine-month profit.

Africa is gaining ultra-wealthy citizens as its economies grow and new-found natural resources catapult thousands into the super-rich class, the report said.

Its top 10 countries ranked by millionaires are expected to have 178,800 dollar millionaires over the next seven years, 37 percent more than in 2012, according to a report by London-based New World Health earlier this year.

Luxury goods sales in Africa are expected to increase by 11 percent this year — demonstrating the continent’s potential for upmarket goods, according to a worldwide market study by Paris-based Bain Company, according to a report by BusinessDayLive.

Bain’s findings on Africa support a report from London-based Euromonitor, which said in October that sub-Saharan Africa was set to become a key battleground for the luxury goods industry, the report said.