Lamborghini May Go Into Retail
Italian high-performance sports car maker Lamborghini has been considering options to bost public awareness of its exclusive brand, which includes a chain of merchandise stores, Chief Executive Stephan Winkelmann said. Lamborghini has in the past partnered up with Nokia and fashion house Versace to promote its brand, but has yet to follow the example of larger rival Ferrari by opening stores selling T-shirts and other items that show off its charging-bull logo.
Versace helped design the interior of two special edition cars, while Nokia put out a limited series of mobile phones with the Lamborghini logo. “We are thinking about different scenarios,” Winkelmann told Reuters. “Opening stores is one of them, but not necessarily the one we will follow. We are trying to find partners that act globally.” He did not elaborate on the other options.
Speaking at the Geneva auto show where he unveiled Lamborghini’s latest car, the Gallardo Superleggera, Winkelmann reiterated his aim to increase unit sales by 5 to 10 percent this year after selling a record 2,087 cars in 2006. “We are very conservative in our forecast,” he said, adding that profit and revenues should grow at an even faster rate. “Clearly, if we want to have growth of 5-10 percent it must be that revenues and profit growth will be higher.”
Lamborghini, based in the small Italian town of Sant’Agata Bologenese, is a unit of Audi, the premium brand of Germany’s Volkswagen AG. In 2006, Lamborghini’s gross profit more than quadrupled to 18.1 million euros ($23.84 million), while revenues grew 43 percent to 346.3 million euros. “We are aiming for controlled growth (in unit sales),” he said. “We could produce much more but we want to keep control. “The key aspect is to be in shortage,” he added, explaining that he wanted to keep the waiting list for the cars at 12 months to preserve the exclusivity of the brand. Production for 2007 is already sold out.
Italian high-performance sports car maker Lamborghini has been considering options to bost public awareness of its exclusive brand, which includes a chain of merchandise stores, Chief Executive Stephan Winkelmann said. Lamborghini has in the past partnered up with Nokia and fashion house Versace to promote its brand, but has yet to follow the example of larger rival Ferrari by opening stores selling T-shirts and other items that show off its charging-bull logo.
Versace helped design the interior of two special edition cars, while Nokia put out a limited series of mobile phones with the Lamborghini logo. “We are thinking about different scenarios,” Winkelmann told Reuters. “Opening stores is one of them, but not necessarily the one we will follow. We are trying to find partners that act globally.” He did not elaborate on the other options.
Speaking at the Geneva auto show where he unveiled Lamborghini’s latest car, the Gallardo Superleggera, Winkelmann reiterated his aim to increase unit sales by 5 to 10 percent this year after selling a record 2,087 cars in 2006. “We are very conservative in our forecast,” he said, adding that profit and revenues should grow at an even faster rate. “Clearly, if we want to have growth of 5-10 percent it must be that revenues and profit growth will be higher.”
Lamborghini, based in the small Italian town of Sant’Agata Bologenese, is a unit of Audi, the premium brand of Germany’s Volkswagen AG. In 2006, Lamborghini’s gross profit more than quadrupled to 18.1 million euros ($23.84 million), while revenues grew 43 percent to 346.3 million euros. “We are aiming for controlled growth (in unit sales),” he said. “We could produce much more but we want to keep control. “The key aspect is to be in shortage,” he added, explaining that he wanted to keep the waiting list for the cars at 12 months to preserve the exclusivity of the brand. Production for 2007 is already sold out.
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