German luxury carmaker BMW is looking to expand the MINI portfolio in India next year in order to cater to rising demand for the range beyond metro cities, according to the company’s President and CEO, Hardeep Singh Brar.
The company, which now has MINI Cooper, MINI Countryman JCW and MINI Convertible in its portfolio, is looking to expand its sales network in smaller cities and towns as the brand gains acceptance beyond major cities.
“We are looking at a couple of more products under the MINI portfolio next year,” Brar told PTI in an interaction.
The luxury carmaker will be expanding its sales network further next year, adding locations like Jaipur, Lucknow and Ranchi, and all these small towns where the company has no presence currently.
“We are present in about nine cities (for MINI). We want to double the number of cities next year, so that it has a presence beyond the metro cities. We are now slowly and gradually getting a lot of demand from the smaller markets as well,” Brar said.
Being present in the local market also gives a lot of confidence in terms of after sales, etc, he noted.
“So we want to enhance the product portfolio, sales network. Besides, we are looking to build the MINI community, and want to do a lot of events for them next year,” Brar said.
Brar said that 40 per cent of the MINI customers in India are actually BMW owners who already own a BMW car.
The automaker imports the MINI range as a completely built-up unit (CBU). Since 2012, the company has sold around 7,500 MINI units in the country.
The latest of the lot, the all-new MINI Convertible, is tagged at ₹58.5 lakh (ex-showroom).
On the sales outlook for next year, Brar noted that the company is looking at the ‘bare minimum’ double-digit growth.
The luxury car segment has been doing fairly well overall, he stated.
Even before the GST reforms, while the mass market cars were growing at about 2-3 per cent, the luxury segment was growing at 10 per cent, Brar said.
“We were growing at about 13-14 per cent. Our average growth rate post-Covid has been about 15 per cent, and we would like to continue with the momentum that has been built over the last four or five years, and would like to further grow on that,” he said.
“I think double-digit growth is the bare minimum that we are looking at next year,” Brar stated.
