As the pandemic and lockdowns affect companies and jobs across India while creating confusion in key urban markets, luxury car owners are urgently trying to dispose of their premium cars at a fraction of the purchase price.
In Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Chennai and Kochi, over half a dozen luxury car dealerships said they are receiving a growing number of customer requests to find buyers at heavily discounted prices for their pre-owned vehicles. Similar demands were also put by several banks, they said.
Once we have enough leads, we push advertisements locally to invite interest from potential customers,” said a Mumbai-based dealer, seeking anonymity.
“Luxury car owners usually don’t approach independent brokers to get the desired price, and they rely on organized channels, We help clients not only find buyers to keep in contact with us but also because a good number luxury cars have good margins,” said an anonymous Kochi dealer.
Luxury car values depreciated the most in the pre-owned car market in comparison with other types of passenger vehicles. According to the people involved in the trade, a 3-4-year-old pre-owned luxury car can be bought for as low as 40 per cent of its original purchase value.
While these transactions underline the underlying pain, they also give those wishing to own a luxury vehicle the opportunity.
The Co-Founder of Luxury Ride India Pvt, Delhi-based Sumit Garg was quoted as saying that a pre owned Audi A4 can be bought for about 15 lakh, and a pre owned Mercedes-Benz S-Class and BMW X5 can be bought
for Rs. 45 lakh and Rs. 40 lakh or so. The price per dealer of the latest Audi A4 is about Rs.41 lakh and, and over Rs.75 lakh respectively for the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and BMW X5 which is Rs.1.44 crore.
19 jaguar land Rover pre-owned vehicles are on the pipeline. This is more than what in February-March we purchased from them, “Garg said.
The number of listings on classified platforms for pre-owned luxury cars has been sharply rising in the past few months, according to Amit Kumar, head of OLX Autos India.
Kumar added that there was also increased demand for these vehicles on OLX, where the supply of pre-owning luxury cars increased by 82 per cent in June-August compared to March-May.
Kumar said, adding that pattern coincides with India starting to release in June. ‘Maharashtra and Delhi-NCR from the north and Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka are the states where owners sold their cars.’
