Pune: Lexus, the luxury car brand of Japanese auto giant Toyota, which completed six years in India, is betting big on doubling its sales in India in 2023, driven by a sustained order booking by aspiring buyers.
Also, with its base in the country becoming bigger, Lexus is introducing more cars this year even as it is exploring the possibility of assembling more cars in the country.
While it has already introduced the Lexus LC 500 facelift two months ago, the new Lexus RX SUV will be launched in June-July and the all-new Lexus LM, the luxury van, this year.
“The luxury car market has rebounded and Lexus too has been growing rapidly,” Naveen Soni, president at Lexus India told FC.
While the luxury car market with the market leader, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Jaguar Land Rover and Volvo together grew at about 53 per cent, Lexus clocked 76 per cent growth despite chip shortages, he said.
“We are confident of doubling our sales this calendar year on the back of improved chip supplies and robust SUV sales,” Soni said, pointing out that India is the only sweet spot in the Asia region, which was all set to climb to the top three markets.
He said he has also requested the headquarters to assemble the popular Lexus models in India apart from the present Lexus ES 300h sedan model assembled at the Toyota factory at Bidadi, near Bangalore.
“At present the waiting period for our models ranges from three to 18 months, but with improvement in chip supply, we will be able to deliver cars faster than last year,” Soni said.
He said the luxury car market in India this calendar year will cross the peak achieved in 2018 at 42,000 units. In CY 2022, the sales had clocked around 38,000 units.
