Luxury carmaker Lexus India launched its first showroom in Andhra Pradesh near Mangalagiri on Monday. The showroom — Lexus Meraki — was launched by Lexus India president Naveen Soni along with Lexus Meraki principal dealer (Vijayawada) M. Harshavardhan.
“The domestic luxury car market is poised for exponential growth as the GDP per capita income is likely to grow by six times from the present $3,000 in the coming years as India is geared up to become a $5 trillion economy, up from about $3 trillion now. As on date, luxury cars account for just 1% of the mass car market where the sales are about 40 lakh per year,” Mr. Soni said in a media interaction after inaugurating the showroom, which the company calls a ‘lifestyle space’.
“Against this backdrop, in spite of being a late entrant into the luxury car segment in India, luxury car manufacturer Lexus is well-positioned to make its mark by virtue of the lifestyle experience it provides to its customers (whom the company calls ‘guests’) rather than compete with the dominant players from Germany namely Audi, BMW and Mercedes in the luxury mobility space as such.”
“Above all, the comfort and experience customers get at Lexus is the best in class,” Mr. Soni said.
It is the company’s fifth such lifestyle space of its kind in India, the others being in Gurgaon, Coimbatore, Pune and Calicut.
Elaborating further, Mr. Soni said India registered the highest sales of luxury cars of up to 42,000 units in 2018 and it plummeted to as low as 18,000 in 2019-20 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It bounced back to up to 26,000 in 2021 and 36,000 the subsequent year. This year, it is expected to touch 43,000 as the demand picked up significantly.
As far as Lexus cars are concerned, Mr. Soni said 99% of the company’s products were hybrid as on date and it was bracing to become a 100% Battery-Electric (BE) carmaker by 2035. Lexus launched two BE cars at the recent Tokyo Motor Show. These premium vehicles come with a range of 1,000 km for a single charge cycle, he noted.
