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This morning I was reading an article in Spanish on Bloomberg from February 2022 about luxury vehicles in the Dominican Republic and it got me thinking, what is the situation in Latin America?
According to Bloomberg using data from the Dirección General de Impuestos Internos (DGII), for Americans this is the equilant of the IRS, luxury vehicles in the Dominican Republic have the following characteristics.
- Around 15% to 18% of vehicles in Dominican streets are luxury or premium types. Compared to other markets with a similar diversity of brands this is a huge share.
- The amount of premium cars sold new in the DR is greater as a proportion of its size than several other countries that are larger and more developed.
- Mercedes-Benz are the most popular of the luxury brands among Dominicans, with Ferrari and Audi getting a mention.
- Some of the luxury brands includes Mercedes-Benz (14,030 vehicles), Jagua (760), Porsche (1,030), Lexus (2,43), and BMW (8,248).
- The DR has 72,536 luxury vehicles registered on December 31, 2020.
I think in all of Central America and the Caribbean, Puerto Rico is probably the only market where the luxury vehicles segment is greater if not proportionally, then numerically than in the DR. In terms of the diversity of brands, I would think the DR is ahead in that front given that in PR they don't have dealerships of certain regular brands non-existent in the USA such as Peugeot, Citroën, Ssang Yong, Changan, and a few others. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case in the luxury segment too.
The following Printscreens are from Google Street View Santo Domingo.
Not in the aricle cited, but in other interviews the owner of this Porsche dealership has claimed that it ranks among the top 5 in sales for Latin America taking into account the size of the market.
Volvo dealerships in the Caribbean are only two, one in San Juan (Puerto Rico) and this one.
There are two Maserati dealerships in the Caribbean, one in San Juan (Puerto Rico) and this one.
This is one of the nine Bentley dealerships in Latin America. In the Caribbean there only two, one in San Juan (Puerto Rico) and this one.
The French Citroën is nit a luxury brand. I don't know where they have dealerships in Latin America, but definitely not found in the USA and, by consequence, in Puerto Rico. The DR has three dealerships, two in Santo Domingo and another in Santiago. European brands tend to be seen as exclusive in the DR whether they are luxury brands or not.
The Citroën C5 they are promoting in that printscreen is this one. Such a nice vehicle, IMO.
These are only the official dealerships of these companies, but their cars are alsk sold by other third-party deslerships all over the DR. The official house is the only allowed to import them new and they distribute to the other third-party dealerships.
It should be noted that the past Thursday to Sunday was the yearly "Autoferia Popular" by Banco Popular for new cars sales at the headquarters of the bank in Santo Domingo. This is the largest event of its kind in the DR. Friday was dedicaded to promote 45 hybrids and electric vehicles, the most they have promoted in the event basically duplicating the amount 2 years ago. They concluded the event with over RD$10 billion (about US$182 million) in financing over 4 days and the SUV's were the most sold vehicles. The fact they devoded a full day to hybrids/electric vehicles show the importance given to this segment. In fact, financing for these types of vehicles had the lowest interest rates compared to gasoline only vehicles.
The following video is of the Autoferia Popular from 5 years ago. Believe it or not, this gives an idea what the event is like even if you don't know Spanish, because they do a good coverage showing the Autoferia. By the way, I think they gray hair guy that appears is Colombian given his accent. He was one of the repbresentatives of Banco Popular.
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