Maserati, the Italian car maker, outperformed other top luxury brands in the Middle East last year, recording a 44 per cent jump in sales compared with 2012.
“In January 2014 we have sold as many cars as we did in the whole of 2007,” said Umberto Maria Cini, the managing director Maserati Middle East and Africa.
Among its competitors, Porsche registered the next best increase in sales, of 26 per cent, followed by Rolls-Royce at 17 per cent and Mercedes at 16.7 per cent. Audi and BMW had increases of 16.3 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively.
Maserati, the Fiat-Chrysler owned brand, owned brand expects sales to increase with the introduction of the Ghibli, which will be delivered to customers in UAE from this month.
It is Maserati’s entry level model priced at about Dh285,000. And although only launched last October, it was one of the reasons Maserati increased its sales globally by 158 per cent, said Mr Cini.
In the UAE it is the Dh410,000 Quattroporte that is popular.
“The Quattroporte is our most popular model here without a doubt,” said Mr Cini. “The GranTurismo has extremely good numbers and we expect the Ghibli to spike sales. Historically we have a 70/30 split in sales between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. In the last four months we started to notice a big pickup in Abu Dhabi sales to the point the last two months it was 60/40 in favour of Dubai.”
The car maker is gearing up for the anticipated demand by investing in new facilities.
“We are opening up new facilities for after-sales service in the UAE and the major cities around the GCC,” said Mr Cini. “We are opening a facility on Mohammed Bin Zayed Road between Dubai and Sharjah, one in Riyadh and one in Dammam.
Mr Cini said the company was looking at the possibility of opening another showroom next year. “At the moment we will remain with two points of sale but we are looking at another for 2015 when we deliver our new SUV the Levante when we will need more space.”
Maserati’s global 2012 sales were €634 million (Dh3.18 billion), a fraction of Fiat-Chrysler’s €84bn group revenue.
Fiat has invested €1.4bn to build factories and develop models, with a target of delivering 50,000 cars by 2015, up from just over 6,000 cars in 2012.
ascott@thenational.ae
