The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

THE Bahamian BMW dealer yesterday said it had "upped" its sales forecast for the brand's first year by about 30 per cent, and is expecting to close deals for 100 vehicles between that and the Mini this year.

The BMW brand has returned to Bahamian shores for just six months, but Fred Albury, president of Omega Motors, told Tribune Business yesterday that its sales performance had easily beaten the dealership's internal sales forecasts.

"BMW is doing very well," he told Tribune Business. "It's gone beyond expectations...... We've had to up our forecast for the year, taking it up about 30 per cent.

"The first shipment arrived at the end of November, and last month we sold 10 units. Our internal forecast was to do 50 units for the first year, and we've upped that, with BMW and the Minis - because we have the Minis coming in later this month or early next - taking that up to 100 units."

Mr Albury attributed BMW's early success to the smaller engine sizes on many of its models, which brought them into the lower 65 per cent Excise Tax band, plus the breadth of available product and the brand's top-end reputation.

"In the past, the persons that dealt with BMW were probably undercapitalised or not real car people per se," he added. "With the Europeans downsizing engine sizes, a lot of engines BMW offers will be the 2 litre size, and that comes into the lowest duty category of 65 per cent.

"The market is really ripe for a premium brand like BMW. Mercedes is here, but they do not have the range of product offered to us. We have a good range of product."

Mr Albury said Omega Motors had hired a sales consultant specifically for the BMW brand. Two technical persons had also been taken on, and a third one was completing their training in Orlando and should return to the Bahamas "in a month or two".

And a consultant had also been hired for the Mini brand, the Omega Motors president added.

When it came to the collective performance of the Bahamas Motor Dealers Association (BMDA), the body that represents the Bahamian new car industry, Mr Albury noted that the market had moved in favour of Korean-manufactured brands.

Part of the Auto Mall, which includes Quality Auto, the Hyundai dealer, Mr Albury added: "The market has shifted heavily from the Japanese products to the Korean brands, mainly because of the price levels the Koreans can offer in their exchange rate, the won/US dollar, as opposed to the yen/US dollar."

While the BMDA had reported a collective 10 per cent sales increase year-over-year for the 2012 first quarter, and a 48.1 per cent rise over 2010 comparatives, sales of the Korean new car brands - the Kia and the Hyundai - accounted for more than 50 per cent of market sales.

"The Koreans have come on with a nice product range; they've refreshed it in the last couple of years," Mr Albury told Tribune Business. "The price is right, the product is right and the quality is right.

"The first quarter of this year, over 50 per cent of what has been sold has between the Korean brands - the Kia and Hyundai. Those manufacturers are going all out as far as product goes. On the Hyundai brand, we do not get everything we order - we're under allocation, and that's worldwide."

Mr Albury added that Japanese car manufacturers, such as Toyota and Hyundai, were moving to combat the yen's strength by shifting production to other locations, such as Thailand and the US.

Commenting on the overall status of the Bahamian new car market, Mr Albury told Tribune Business: "It's moving in the right direction. It's slow but going in the right direction.

"At least this way we can plan better, if it's slow and steady compared to valleys and peaks - a couple of good months, and then it falls off again."

This was critical, Mr Albury added, as dealers had to plan and order forward five-six months in advance.

The BMDA said sales of passenger cars and SUVs continued to hold most of the Bahamian new car market, each with 42 per cent, while commercial vehicles remained "in a bit of a slump" at 16 per cent.