BMW and Porsche have been hit by a severe dry spell in the Kenyan market. The hype the luxury cars received while landing in Kenya is now fading away.
It is becoming evident that most Kenyans cannot afford a BMW and Porsche ride but instead simple and cheap rides.
In the new report the luxury cars failed to make even a single sale for over 2 months in the market.
Data released this week by Kenya Motor Industry Association (KMIA) shows sales of Land Rover that also includes Range Rover dropped to eight from the 14 reported in the first two months of last year.
Dealers in new luxury cars have witnessed flat growth in sales in the last three years in what industry analysts have linked to increased government scrutiny on individuals’ lifestyles in the war on corruption and tax cheats.
Reduced flow of bank loans after the government introduced the lending rates cap in September 2016 has also hurt auto dealers.
The cap has had the effect of stifling the credit market as banks became more cautious in their lending practices.
Jaguar, which is under UK-controlled luxury car dealer Inchcape Plc together with Land Rover and BMW, sold one unit in the two months.
“For the first two months, we’ve never reported any sales but we are expecting vehicles this month in the country this month. We have sales but we cannot report before we hand over the car to the customer,” Inchcape Kenya marketing manager Charity Mutunga said on phone.
DT Dobie, however, bucked the trend in the luxury car market after sales of its Mercedes brands increased to 49 units in the two months compared to the 32 cars it sold in the same period last year.
But DT Dobie sold one Jeep Grand SUV, down from two in a similar period a year earlier.
Overall, sale of new vehicles fell by 289 units, or 14.68 percent, in the review period to 1,680, the KMIA statistics show.
Isuzu East Africa, which deals in commercial vehicles, reported the highest sales at 588 units in the two-month period, slightly higher than 531 vehicles 12 months earlier.
Sale of new Toyota brands, which controls the largest share of total Kenyan car market, fell to 349 from 403 units in 2018.
New unit sales by Mitsubishi fell to 292 from 306 units, while Nissan orders dropped by more than half to 49 units from 108 a year ago.