Levante luring new Maserati buyers

MASERATI’S Levante SUV has helped attract new buyers to the brand, which has resulted in a broadening demographic of younger and female customers opting for the Italian car-maker’s products.

According to Maserati, more than 90 per cent of Levante buyers have never bought a Maserati before, representing a new area of conquest from other luxury manufacturers.

Speaking to GoAuto at the launch of the Levante S last week, Maserati Australia chief operating officer Glen Sealey said that the Levante has helped broaden the demographic of a typical Maserati buyer, even in other model lines.

When talking about brand conquest, Mr Sealey said: “So someone who is new to the brand, who has never owned a Maserati before has come in and bought a Levante, so 95 per cent of our customers have never been near a Maserati before, never even thought of it.

“And Levante has done a very good job there. What we’re seeing though is that’s rubbing off on the brand overall.

“We’re seeing a greater level of female clientele across the board, so for example even GranCabrio is 30 per cent female.

“Levante is also 30 per cent female on contract, but we know the driver is more like 50:50, so it’s certainly doing its job in that regard.”

Previously, the average Maserati owner was a 49-year-old male who owned their own business or was an entrepreneur.

Maserati is also poaching sales in the luxury SUV segment, with 70 per cent of Levante customers having previously owned an SUV.

With one month left in 2017, the Levante is Maserati’s best-selling model with 407 sales, more than double that of its next-best seller, the Ghibli large sedan with 207.

Mr Sealey said he believed that Maserati would be able to keep its new-found customers, thanks to strong brand loyalty.

“We do tend to have terrific brand loyalty,” he said. “Whether we will see that for Levante – there will be a couple of factors that are important there.

“They have to be exposed to the Maserati lifestyle. Maserati is a brand, is a family. We are a family brand and by that I mean if a Maserati customer has an issue with their car, they have my number, they can call me.

“We don’t sell thousands and thousands and thousands of cars, we sell less than a thousand a year, and therefore every customer is vital.

“And we hope that the customer base enjoy that contact, that familiarity, and they want to stay within that, as opposed to moving to something that is less familiar I guess.”

Sales of the Levante can be partly blamed for the drop off in Ghibli sales, which have dipped 38.5 per cent this year, but Mr Sealey said that customers moving within the brand was not a problem.

“Ideally, going back to customer loyalty, we would like people to move through our model range,” he said.

“We want people from Ghibli to Quattroporte, we want people from Ghibli to GranTurismo and we want people from Ghibli to Levante.

“Keeping them loyal is important, so seeing them move from Ghibli to Levante is not a problem.”