Master Group Corporation (Asia) is bullish on the luxury car market, hoping that its new business line-up - tuning services and accessories for Porsches - will give a turbo boost to its growth this year.
The Porsche market has grown in both the grey and authorised channels, in turn creating demand for tuning services and products, said Jittisak Wongsiri, the sales director at MMS Tuning Center, which provides tuning services and accessories for Porsches at the country's major automotive retail and after-market player.
Statistics from the Land Transport Department and grey market sales figures show as many as 1,300 Porsches were sold in Thailand in 2012 but only 180-190 through authorised dealers.
Master Group's subsidiary Master Motor Services (MMS) operates the tuning centre and was last year named as the authorised distributor of TechArt for Porsches and AC Schnitzer tuning products for BMW and Mini models in Thailand.
Thailand is the second market in Southeast Asia after Singapore to be given a TechArt franchise.
TechArt has authorised distributors in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Japan.
The next destination will be China, said Thomas Behringer, who founded TechArt in Leonberg, Germany in 1987. TechArt, the only official tuning supplier for Porsche AG, is located near Porsche's Zuffenhausen base and its research centre in Weissach.
TechArt Thailand is located at A Square off Sukhumvit Soi 26 in the MMS Tuning Center, offering a complete tuning package for every Porsche model. Founded last April, the centre expects accessory sales growth of 10% from 2012.
It provided tuning packages to 19 Porsches last year, with sales worth 20 million baht. Packages range from 600,000 to 2 million baht.
The Master Group reported robust sales revenue of 12 billion baht last year, up from 8.5 billion in 2011.
The group forecasts revenue growth of at least 25% this year to 15 billion baht, rising to 30 billion once the Asean Economic Community kicks off in 2016.