Vietnamese willing to spend big money on super cars

According to Choi Duk June, CEO of Mercedes Benz Vietnam, 150 Maybachs were delivered to Vietnamese buyers in 2017. The sales of Maybach in Vietnam are the highest in Southeast Asia.

This is a luxury model of Mercedes-Benz with three versions in distribution in Vietnam, including Maybach S 400 priced at VND6.899 billion, Maybach S 500 VND10.999 billion and Maybach S 600 VND14.169 billion.

When launching Maybach S 600 into the market in January 2015, Mercedes Benz then hoped it could sell 10 products a year. However, to its surprise, over 50 products were sold in the year.

The figure was over 100 in 2016, and Vietnam remained the biggest buyer of Maybachs in 2017, leaving Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore far behind.

It is estimated that over 300 Maybachs are rolling on Vietnam’s streets.

The other luxury models also had very good sales. Over 500 S-Class products, priced at VND4-10 billion, were sold in 2017.

However, the highest growth rate belonged to mid-end luxury models, priced at VND1.5-3 billion. A record number of 2,500 GLCs priced at VND1.939-2.209 billion was sold in 2017, placing GLC as one of the 15 best sellers in the market.

The other luxury models which sold very well in 2017 included BMW’s Seri 3 and Seri 5, Audi’s A4 and Q5 and Lexus’ ES 250 and NX 200T.

Car dealers in Vietnam say there is a switch in consumption from common products to mid-end products. A survey by Mercedes Benz found that car buyers tend to be younger.

In 2014, the average age of car buyers was 42, while it was 39 in 2016 and 38 in 2017.

Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) survey showed that Vietnam is getting wealthy thanks to the strong rise of the middle class which has been growing more quickly than any other place in South East Asia.

Those who have monthly income of $714 and more are classified as middle class. Vietnam expects to have 33 million middle class people by 2020.

According to the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (VAMA), a total of 272,750 automobile units were sold in 2017, down 10 percent yearly.