- Ultra-luxury car sales thrived in 2021 as the auto industry struggled to build enough cars.
- Rolls-Royce, for example, increased sales by a whopping 49% in 2021.
- Super-premium brands saw strong demand and were unaffected by the chip crisis.
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Automakers sold millions fewer vehicles than usual in 2021 as a shortage of computer chips and other pandemic-related disruptions scrape the cogs of car manufacturing from one spanner to the other.
But ultra-high-end brands like Bentley and Rolls-Royce thrived amid the chaos. A booming stock market made affluent consumers even wealthier, while the pandemic prompted them to open their wallets to physical goods rather than travel and vacations. Also, super-premium brands have not been hit by the semiconductor shortage like mass manufacturers.
Rolls-Royce, whose flagship Phantom starts at around $460,000, sold a record 5,586 cars in 2021, up 49% from 2020. Bentley moved 14,659 vehicles, a 31% increase from the previous year. Lamborghini also had a record year.
Bentley Flying Spur W12.
Bentley
In part, sales have boomed for the simple reason that wealthy people have gotten richer in recent years. Luxury vehicle sales are directly correlated to the stock market, said Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Cox Automotive.
A strong market during the pandemic – one that has doubled the fortunes of the 10 richest people in two years – may have pushed a particular segment of buyers to take the deduction for this $400,000 custom Rolls-Royce Cullinan SUV or operating the $200,000 Bentley Continental they’ve longed for.
With more time and fewer opportunities to splurge on travel and food, people are focusing their spending on exclusive and special products to enjoy from home, said Martin Fritsches, CEO of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Americas. to insiders.
Both Rolls-Royce and Bentley also attribute the booming demand of recent years to new product offerings that have attracted first-time buyers. Since late 2019, Bentley has launched new models, paint jobs and a dark blackline accessory package, all of which have attracted a younger customer base, said Michael Rocco, vice president of sales and operations for Bentley Americas.
Similarly, Rolls-Royce’s Cullinan — its first SUV and first four-wheel drive vehicle — is “a major game changer,” Fritsches said. Thanks to him and other models, the average age of Rolls-Royce customers has dropped to 43 years.
The Rolls Royce Cullinan SUV.
Rolls-Royces.
But demand is only half the equation. The bigger question might be how these companies have been able to feed growing appetites in an auto industry environment beset by parts shortages, shipping crises and other disruptions.
Niche manufacturers tend to have smaller, more stable supply chains, which means there’s less risk of running out of parts or materials, said Kevin Tynan, senior automotive analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Rolls-Royce, for example, builds all of its vehicles in a factory in England. A giant like Toyota produces millions of cars in factories around the world.
Another piece of the puzzle is that Bentley and Rolls-Royce are owned by large parent companies — the Volkswagen Group and the BMW Group, respectively — that have strong incentives to allocate as many computer chips as needed to their most profitable products and brands. Neither Rolls-Royce nor Bentley had trouble getting the chips they needed, the companies told Insider. Prioritizing high-margin vehicles when supplies run low is “Business 101,” Tynan said.
The surge in super-high-end vehicle sales comes amid a broader luxury vehicle boom. In 2021, both Porsche and BMW saw huge growth while mass-market brands struggled. In 2012, only 6% of cars bought in the US cost $50,000 or more, according to Cox Automotive. In 2021, that number rose to 30%.
