Italian luxury car maker Maserati enters local market

MANILA, Philippines - Italian luxury car maker, Maserati S.p.A. has officially entered the Philippine market and is expecting to sell 10 to 20 units this year.

In an interview, Maserati Asia Pacific Business Development director Francesco Fabbiani said they have already sold eight units prior to yesterday’s launch. The Maserati is priced between P9.8 million and P11.3 million.

The Philippines is the tenth Asian market Maserati has entered. According to Fabbiani, they entered the Asian market because the European market has already matured.

Maserati will bring in as much as 20 units this year. Worldwide production of Maserati is only 5,000 to 6,000 units per year. “We are really a niche,” Fabbiani said.

Maserati will be distributed locally by Formula Sports Inc (FSI), the distributor of Jaguar, Land Rover and soon Ferrari vehicles. Yesterday, it unveiled two models the Quattroporte S. and Granturismo S at the Rockwell Tent.

FSI chairman and president Wellington Soong refused to reveal the eight people who bought Maseratis saying only that “they are captains of industry.”

“These are exciting times for luxury car enthusiasts. The Maserati brand caters to our most discriminating clientele. Now is the time to aggressively market the Maserati, given that other luxury vehicles have been around for a while and buyers are hungry for an alternative,” Soong said.

Soong explained that the market for luxury vehicles is rising in the country given that there is new wealth “from very enterprising entrepreneurs. Business overall is very robust,” he added.

For the entire FSI, Soong said they would like to grow by 10 percent to 15 percent this year. Land Rover accounted for the bulk of the cars they sell with 60 percent followed by Jaguar, Maserati then Ferrari.

For this year, Soong said they are targeting to sell over 100 units of Land Rovers and 60 units of Jaguars.