Despite an unfavourable market outlook, German luxury car maker BMW Group Thailand is committed to expanding its outlets and service centres for its three brands — BMW, Mini and BMW Motorrad.
BMW’s 20th outlet opened recently on Charan Sanitwong Road. It is operated by authorised dealer Performance Motors, which spent 150 million baht for this outlet including land.
President Matthias Pfalz said the group planned to increase its BMW outlets to 23 this year from 17 in 2013, bump its Mini centres from six to 11, and increase BMW Motorrad outlets, the group’s big bike unit, from four to eight. He did not reveal the cost for the expansion.
"The group remains confident in luxury car prospects despite Thailand’s bearish car industry," he said. "Luxury car sales are projected to grow by single digits this year from 18,000 units last year," he said.
For the first eight months this year, BMW Group Thailand reported its car sales fell by 2.2% year-on-year to 5,051 units.
BMW sales dropped 7% for the period to 4,512 units, but Mini sales surged 80% to 539 cars. BMW Motorrad sales rose 30% to 348 units, driven largely by locally assembled motorcycles.
BMW started making the first model of BMW Motorrad's F800R locally in January, then announced in July assembly of a second model, the F800GS. BMW wants to compete aggressively here and local assembly could cut the retail price by 30-40% from imported motorcycles, said Mr Pfalz.
BMW Motorrad reported robust sales growth of 38% last year, moving 400 units. Last year the group reported record sales with 8,147 BMW and Mini vehicles delivered, up 33% from 2012, the second-highest growth rate within the BMW Group worldwide.
BMW is spending 9 million euros (368 million baht) to expand its Thai plant and upgrade its logistics system to support the growing domestic market. The investment will go mainly to expand production of passenger cars and motorcycles at Rayong's Amata City Industrial Estate.