In the past few weeks, my email box has been bombarded with press releases of how well the car brands have done in terms of new car sales in 2012 as compared to the previous year.
While the world is still coming to terms with the effects of the economic slaughter that the Americans injected into the global economy a few years back, Middle East seems to be dancing on a different tune all together.
Despite civil unrest in many countries in the Middle East, almost every carmaker worth its weight has reported sales growth in double digits. The question is not who has grown, but who has not grown sales?
The luxury car marquee Bentley logged a 44% increase in regional sales as against 22% increase in its global sales. The new Bentley Continental GT V8 contributed significantly to the sales increase in the region and accounted for as much as 20% of it sales. Globally, the carmaker delivered 8510 cars, inclusive of 815 cars delivered in the Middle East.
Jaguar and Land Rover regional office clocked strong sales performance in 2012 with Jaguar cars registering an increase of 27%. Sales of its Land Rover brand were up by 34% in 2012. Jaguar XF and Land Rover LR2 were star performers in the region. The announcement echoes Jaguar Land Rover’s recently announced global retail sales growth of 30% in 2012, the best global sales performance in the company’s history.
The story is not just limited to premium car brands. New car sales of the industry giant Toyota grew by 23% globally. Talking numbers, the Japanese carmaker sold 8.72 million units in 2012. In the Middle East, sales of Toyota stood at 660,285 units commanding an impressive 43% share of the GCC new car market. The regional year on year sales increase stood at 31%. With the new Toyota 86, RAV4 and soon to be launched Avalon, the onslaught continues in 2013 as well. An impressive achievement for Toyota was crossing the sales mark of 1 million units of its hybrid cars on the global canvas. We see other brands going green (envy).
