Even before its arrival in Qatar, due late this month, Maserati Levante is almost sold out for the year.
Invigorating Italian performance backed with a vividly designed exterior, the automotive beauty was launched recently in Qatar taking Maserati into the luxury SUV segment in style. With the arrival of Levante, Maserati is now present in every single segment of luxury automotive business.
And Qatar is one of the leading markets in terms of sales and share in the region, says Umberto Cini, the Managing Director of Maserati Middle East, India and Africa, while talking to Community on his recent visit to town.
“We are in a special moment of our history. We have a very long history that has gone through many special moments. Thanks to Quattroporte, Ghibli and GranCabrio, we were covering about 50 percent of the global luxury market,” says Cini.
“It goes without saying that these reflect positively also on the sales because we are adding another 50 percent of possibilities to our capabilities. In Qatar, we were prepared for this particular moment. With our partners Alfardan Automobiles, we have worked in order to reach perfection,” he adds.
Maserati has a brand new showroom in The Pearl. They offer state-of-the-art services that are going to be improved even further. There is a team that looks after all aspects of the business and therefore it reflects in the positive customer appreciation and positive results, says the Managing Director.
Lavante, he says, has technically not yet landed in Doha.
“We did the launch with a car which is not a very dynamic car. It is a starting car used only for launches. We brought it in just to show the model to our customers. But Levante is coming out at the end of this month and we have actually sold out all of our current year’s availability,” says Cini.
In term of numbers, besides Lavante, the Ghibli and Quattroporte are doing really well, says the Maserati MD. However, he adds if you think about GranTurismo which is a car that is in the market since 2008, “you would see that it been one of the market leaders, if not the market leader since then in terms of market share.”
“All of our models have been very successful I would say in their reference segment in the market. We are a bit of a standalone reality. We are in the part of the market where no one else is,” he says.
“It is not because of the cost or proposition, exoticness or performance. If you think of all of this together, no other car offers the same level of performance, heritage, luxury and style in that price bracket,” explains the Maserati MD for Middle East, Africa and India.  
In terms of sales, there is always room for improvement, say Cini. You will see, he says, that this year they are already improving in terms of sales in Qatar and he is certain the sales will go up even further the next year. 
Qatar is one of the main markets, he says, in terms of appreciation of our customers, and therefore in terms of market share and sales.
Cini says there is a service still needed to be invented that they do not provide here at Maserati. “We have a full bumper-to-bumper warranty for 3 years, extendable to 5 or 7 years. We have a full maintenance plan, we have Maserati club, we have customers care, we have driving courses for our customers, [and] we have a special merchandising area for our customers,” he says.
In India, Cini says they are still in the very early stages of business. But it is a country that offers a lot of opportunities.  
In Africa, they are present in South Africa, Morocco and Egypt right now and are looking to expand their presence.
“We are present all over the GCC countries and I can say that [we are performing very well and have a] very high market share. We are happy about our performances in the region,” says Cini.
“We came out with five consequent record years, one after the other. The year 2016 would the sixth consecutive year [to record a growth]. The Middle East accounts for almost 8-10 percent of our sales worldwide,” he adds.
This figure was just 3 percent about 7 to 8 years back, which is good, he says, because it has grown.