Dubai - Porsche is looking for investors to set up showrooms and service centres across Africa to increase sales as economies on the continent expand rapidly.
The luxury sports car manufacturer said yesterday that South Africa was already the German marque’s biggest market in its 19-country Porsche Middle East & Africa region, beating Dubai, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.
The Dubai-based regional unit, its fourth-largest subsidiary globally, already had centres in Angola, Nigeria and Ghana, public relations manager Anja Wood said.
“We have long-term committed customers over there, who buy a Porsche and don’t change again from the brand,” Wood said of South Africa. “It’s really the fascination with Porsche that works over there in a very good way for us.”
She added: “We don’t expect a second South Africa in the African continent. We are careful with our wishes and future planning, but we want to increase our presence because we want to make cars available to people where we are not yet present.”
In the first nine months of this year, Porsche sold 1 800 cars in South Africa, 50 percent more units than a year earlier and a fifth of all units delivered by the company in the region.
It sold 8 719 new cars in the region, which includes India and Pakistan, 38 percent more than the previous year.
Porsche helped prop up parent Volkswagen’s nine-month profit as the luxury unit’s sales jumped 15 percent.
Slumping vehicle demand in core European markets, where Volkswagen sells almost 40 percent of its models, has caused sales in the debt-stricken region to drop for seven consecutive quarters.
On the other hand, Africa’s ultra-wealthy class is burgeoning as economies flourish and newly found natural resources catapult thousands into the super-rich class, drawing foreign companies to the previously ignored continent.
Africa’s top 10 countries ranked by millionaires are expected to have 178 800 dollar-millionaires over the next seven years, 37 percent more than last year, according to a report by London-based New World Health earlier this year.
Although off a relatively low base, Africa has had growth rates second only to Asia. Many African countries are embarking on projects to improve infrastructure and increase energy production, which are in turn attracting inward investment. – Reuters