200 SUVs being delivered in India may not be the strongest headline to grab a reader’s attention, but then it's a very different reaction when you find out that the SUV, nay, Super SUV in question is the Lamborghini Urus. Ever since the Urus was first launched in India in 2018, there’s no mistaking that the SUV has been a sales success for Lamborghini in India. In our conversation with Sharad Agarwal, Lamborghini India’s Head of Operations, he says, “In September 2018, we delivered the first Urus in India and in almost 4 years, we are celebrating 200 cars in India, which means we’re maintaining the momentum of delivering one Urus per week, despite the pandemic for one year which really impacted the business from demand side as well as supply side. But I think it's been an incredible achievement for us.”
Sharad cheerfully recalls the Urus journey in India, starting from the first delivery in 2018, to celebrating the 50th Urus delivered in 2019 and the 100th Urus in the country in 2021. Coming back to the topic of the 200th example of the Super SUV in the country, he comments “Even the customer doesn’t know that his (Urus) is the 200th one! Sharad mentions that the introduction of the Urus Pearl Capsule and the Urus Graphite Capsule meant that they received phenomenal response from customers in India. “When we were launching the Urus in India, we always said this was going to be a gamechanger for us. We have always said it's the right Lamborghini for the market to address the challenges we have in terms of congestion, the road conditions, plus it's a Lamborghini you can enjoy with more than one person in the car so you can take your family on long drives. So we always had a strong conviction that this would be a game-changer for us and in the last four years, it has proved to be a game-changer in many ways,” adds Sharad.
Elaborating on their success strategy, the Lamborghini India head says,”For example, 80 per cent of Urus buyers are first-time Lamborghini buyers. So clearly we are able to expand our reach to newer segments. We started a program four years ago wherein we decided to focus on Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, because we believe that wealth is not purely concentrated in the metro cities of India. And with this program called Lamborghini in your City, we have activated more than 100 cities in the last four years despite the pandemic, and today we can see Lamborghini in lots of Tier 1, Tier 2 cities. You have Jalandhar, you have Ludhiana, Amritsar, Ajmer, Jodhpur, Bhopal; we delivered in Guwahati, we delivered in Shillong, we delivered in Bhubaneswar, Udupi, Daman. So it has also brought a huge geographic reach for us and these cities are contributing to nearly one fourth of our business today, which is incredible.”
Sharad also states that 10 per cent of buyers have also bought a sportscar from the Lamborghini stable, after acquiring their Urus. “All of them who are buying an Urus in India always had a dream or aspiration to own a Lamborghini but they held back because they all used to say where do I drive this car, where do I enjoy this car? And when they saw the Urus, they said it is the right Lamborghini for me. And once they buy the Urus, there is a good percentage of buyers who have also bought sports cars from us. They come into our experiential programme, they interact with other supercar owners and they get excited that if they can drive and enjoy (on our roads), why can't I also drive and enjoy this sportscar? So it's not only helping us grow as a brand, but it's also helping us grow the sports car segment in India.”
Sharad also points out that Lamborghini believes in the potential of the Indian market and is taking active steps to help and support the market to grow. “In the last four years, we’ve kept the price of the Urus constant. In 2018 we launched it at Rs 3.16 crore and after four years we’re still at Rs 3.16 crore, so it's something incredible we’ve done for the market, because Lamborghini always believed that India has a potential to grow, we’re doing all the possible steps that we can take to support the market to grow, we see that the size we have today is very very small and there’s a huge potential to grow and it's also a market where Lamborghini is doing phenomenally well when it comes to our segment. Even if you listen to pop songs in our country, every fourth or fifth or them will be talking about Lamborghini or have a Lamborghini in the music video. So it clearly shows how exciting the brand is in the country!”
When asked about Lamborghini India’s future plans, Sharad explains, “We’re working on a three pillar strategy for the market. We are expanding our reach both demographic and geographic. Second, we're working on how we create experiences for customers so that we can enjoy Lamborghinis on Indian roads – last year we drove 50 Lamborghinis from Delhi to Shimla and we made a huge statement saying that we can drive these cars on any roads in the country. And third is getting new models to the market faster, you know that there’s a typical gap of six to eighteen months in the premium segment before a car is launched and it is available in world markets, but we’re trying harder to get these cars quicker in Indian markets. The Urus, when it was launched, we (India) were among the top 5 markets in the world where it was launched. And recently we had the Ultimae we started delivering them when we started delivering them in the other parts of the world, so in the last 3 to 4 years we have demonstrated this very strongly that we are committing to the market, so we continue on these 3 pillars and they’re giving us good results and moving us in the right direction."
Few brands have the kind of pull that Lamborghini possesses and it's awesome to see that the supercar-maker (and Super SUV-maker) is making a killing in its segment in terms of customer response in the country as well as the sheer wow factor which only seems to be upped with each new model being launched on our shores. As for the Urus, it certainly has a spot reserved in our dream garages and it is great to see Lamborghini taking active steps to boost the Super SUV’s appeal in the country.