A freezing economy isn’t stopping the very rich from buying supercars like a Rolls-Royce
A freezing economy isn’t stopping the very wealthy from buying a Rolls-Royce.
“We have not seen any drop in the number of orders over the past months,” Torsten Müller-Ötvös, chief executive officer of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd., told Bloomberg Television. “I’m cautiously optimistic about this year.”
While Rolls-Royce is not immune to the downturn, the global distribution of its customers insulates the luxury-car maker to some extent, the CEO said. The British company is coming off a record year with plans to deliver more than 6,000 vehicles in 2022.
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Rolls-Royce, owned by Germany’s BMW AG, plans to sell only battery-powered vehicles by the end of the decade. In October the British manufacturer showed off the Spectre, an all-electric coupe with a zero-to-60 mph sprint time of 4.4 seconds.
Orders for the Spectre, which are due in the fourth quarter, “exceeded our highest expectations,” the CEO said, adding that the brand is attracting new customers because it’s going electric.
The overall luxury market may cool off a bit this year and it is too early to predict how China will develop, even though it is encouraging that travel from the Asian country is on the rise, Muller-Otvos said.
“Once the epidemic is over in China, I expect the growth pattern to repeat there as well,” he said. “The rest of the world is very stable.”
Rolls-Royce sales rose 8% last year to 6,021 cars, as rising demand in the US offset a decline in China, with customers spending an average of about €500,000 ($537,100) per vehicle. The CEO said the Cullinan, the brand’s first sport utility vehicle, was Rolls-Royce’s best-selling model, accounting for nearly half of deliveries.
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