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The Beamers, Mercs and Porsche’s are not able to meet Indian demand.
Premium car sales in the country grew 70%, or at more than double the rate of the industry's best expectation, in 2010 to 15,000 vehicles, throwing carmaker's supply chain out of gear.

The luxury street is jammed with people waiting to drive away marquees such as Porsche Cayenne, BMW X1, Audi A8 and Mercedes S500, because carmakers are trailing speeding demand by up to six months. Premium car sales in the country grew 70%, or at more than double the rate of the industry’s best expectation, in 2010 to 15,000 vehicles, throwing carmaker’s supply chain out of gear.

“While luxury carmakers stretched their best to meet the growth, demand far outstripped supply,” Mercedes Benz India sales and marketing director Debashish Mitra said. Manufacturers are ramping up capacity to keep pace with record demand, but customers booking popular luxury cars now may have to wait for three to four months for delivery, industry officials said.

Luxury cars are generally delivered within 4-6 weeks of their order. Globally too, factories of Audi, BMW and Mercedes are working at full capacity to keep pace with unprecedented demand. With an average waiting period of three to four months, carmakers fear that customers will switch to competitors.

Most luxury cars are imported in the completely knocked down form and then assembled in the country since overall volumes are still low. So the supply is limited and it takes longer to react when demand spurts. “From order to delivery it generally stretches between two to six months,” said Mitra, Mercedes. Also, most of these cars are highly customized, pushing delivery periods.

Sports car maker Porsche says that its cars are customized as per the buyer's specifications and hence the waiting time for its cars is comparatively more than other brands. “Many exclusive options like special colors, matching painted interior and initials of the owner embossed extend the delivery time for Porsche cars,” Porsche India director Ashish Chordia said.

Besides, its order book is growing faster than supplies. Out of the 379 bookings it received for the Cayenne SUV in 2010, Porsche has managed to deliver only 131 cars. And the waiting period has gone up to six months.

German luxury carmaker BMW has increased production by almost three-fold at its Chennai plant to 8,000 cars per year. Yet, it failed to check the long-waiting backlog for its largest selling 5Series sedan and the newly launched X1 its compact sports utility vehicle, which now takes 4-6 months to reach customers.


Source: ET/Auto India