Mahindra First Choice ventures into pre-owned luxury multi brand car business

If you always dreamt of owning luxury brands like BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Maserati, Porsche etc, but your budget always defied you, here comes a budget friendly option for you to own these big machines. Mahindra pre-owned car dealership First Choice has ventured into 'Highline' business where all the top luxury brands will be sold at a much affordable rate.

Mahindra First Choice officials at the Highline outlet in Gurgaon

Many of these luxury brands already have their individual pre-owned car dealerships in India but the major differentiator between them and Mahindra First Choice Highline business will be as Yatin Chadha senior vice president, retail business Mahindra First Choice Wheels Limited told Auto Monitor: "We will offer multi-brand products and have the opportunity to compare them and have touch and feel experience at one place which is not the case at pre-owned car dealership of Mercedes, BMW or other. The other big advantage would be cost advantage that we will offer."

The first exclusive 'Highline' store with 'Prestige Auto World' located near Gurgaon Central Mall on MG Road in Gurgaon.  The company is planning to open at least two more such stores one each in Mumbai and Bangalore soon.  The total size of the pre-owned luxury cars in India is same as the new cars which is around two percent of the total. Chadha, feels that the new Highline outlet will be able to sell at least five to six vehicles every month.

In the current situation, the profit margin and car sales for the new vehicles might be dwindling and have fallen into south territory but the pre-owned business has been growing over 30 percent.

The margin in this segment of business is much better than the new cars. The pre-owned car sales begets a profit margins of anywhere between 5 to 7 percent where as the margin in new cars varies between 2 to 3 percent.

The used car market in the Delhi-NCR region has witnessed rapid growth over the past few years in line with the expansion of the new car market and rising income and aspiration levels. At present 30,000 used cars are sold in Delhi-NCR every month and this figure is set to rise in the future reaching 35,000 units per month by 2015. Mahindra First Choice recently introduced the IBB price guide for checking used car prices and Autoinspekt which is its car evaluation service.

The company plans to open 500 outlets by the financial year 2016 and increase current pan India network in 180 towns to over 200 towns by end of current financial year.