Luxury Cars – Luxury car sales drop 30pc on Covid woes

A BMW X6. FILE PHOTO | NMG

By CONSTANT MUNDA
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Summary

• The Kenya Motor Industry Association (KMI) statistics show orders for high-end, which cost as much as Sh30 million, fell to 236 units in the review period from 340 in a year ago.
• German-made BMW, whose franchise is now under Inchcape Kenya which bought it from Simba Corporation, was the only brand with notable growth in the luxurious cars category, with sales more than doubling to 24 compared with nine in a similar period in 2019.

Sales of new luxury cars dropped 30 percent in 11 months ended November 2020 in a year most households and businesses saw their earnings hammered by economic fallout arising from coronavirus crisis.

The Kenya Motor Industry Association (KMI) statistics show orders for high-end, which cost as much as Sh30 million, fell to 236 units in the review period from 340 in a year ago.

German-made BMW, whose franchise is now under Inchcape Kenya which bought it from Simba Corporation, was the only brand with notable growth in the luxurious cars category, with sales more than doubling to 24 compared with nine in a similar period in 2019.

The data shows 10 of the 24 BMW cars were bought by the wealth Kenyans after progressive re-opening of the economy started in earnest from July 6, which is more than three times the three units sold in the July-November 2019.

Sales of Land Rover models, which are popular with politicians and chief executive of blue-chip firms, slowed down to 33 from 40 units in the 11-month period. The Land Rover cars, a British brand, is also under Inchcape Kenya franchise.

The KMI data shows that sales of the iconic German car, Mercedes Benz, fell 42.41 percent in the January-November period to 148 units from 257 units in a similar period in 2019.

A total of six Jaguar cars were sold by Inchcape in the period compared with seven a year earlier, while Porsche Centre Nairobi closed orders for 23 units of the high-performance German cars, a marginal drop from 24 units in corresponding period in 2019.

Sales of Bentley cars, a British brand, declined to two from three units, according to the industry statistics.