Covid fails to dent pre-owned luxury car market

Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 12

Notwithstanding the Covid pandemic, demand for pre-owned luxury cars has witnessed a sharp turnaround in North in the first half of the current fiscal. According to sellers, the demand for these luxury vehicles is expected to grow further.

The popular models which are in demand are Rolls-Royce, Mercedes-Benz E-Class, S-Class and above, Audi A6, Audi Q3, Audi A4 and BMW 5 Series.

According to Droom — an online automobile transactional marketplace — the total sale of luxury cars in the northern region was over 1,500 units in the past six months of the current fiscal. The gross merchandise value (GMV) i.e the total value of merchandise sold over a given period of time through a customer-to-customer (C2C) exchange site was around Rs 493 crore. The average selling price of the car was Rs 33 lakh.

Sales jump 50%

The past six months have been pretty good. It’s very difficult to predict the industry figure but we have grown by nearly 50%. — Jatin Ahuja, Founder and MD, Big boy toyz

Further, in order to assist the customers, Droom has leveraged technological innovations powered by augmented reality and virtual reality in addition to tools using artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data to offer new products and solutions for automobile commerce. Recently, it has acquired a company to provide a live virtual tour of vehicles to customers who can experience it in the 3D format.

Big Boy Toyz — another player which sells pre-owned luxury cars such as Mercedes-Benz, Aston Martin, Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce — has sold around 140 cars in the first half of the current fiscal across metros and tier-II and tier-III cities, including Ludhiana.

“The past six months have been pretty good. It’s very difficult to predict the industry figure but we have grown by nearly 50%. Our clients include industrialists, cricketers and celebrities,” said Jatin Ahuja, founder and MD of Big Boy Toyz.