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Dubai: The medium-sized sports utility vehicle (SUV) market is growing 27 per cent annually in the UAE, a top official said.
"The Middle East is a rapidly emerging mid-SUV market," Shunichi Uchinda, general manager of Honda Middle East, said at the launch the company's new medium sized SUV called Pilot, a re-branding of its earlier MRV model.
Arijit Basu, assistant general manager for the Middle East, told Gulf News that the niche market is growing at about 27 per cent annually.
He said the large-sized market is slowing down, and people are moving more towards medium-sized SUVs.
"People don't have the time to take their large SUVs to the desert, they are more into sophisticated SUVs now,' Basu said.
He said the sole reason for the company to launch a medium-sized SUV was due to the rapid expansion in this market niche.
The Pilot, manufactured in Alabama, USA, will retail for Dh128,000 at the basic level, and at Dh140,000 with extra options. Basu said that the location of manufacturing had affected the pricing.
Going on sale next week in the UAE, 350 units have already been shipped in of the former MRV, which was replaced with the globally recognised name - Pilot.
While the SUV market for the manufacturer is small, the company is projecting the Pilot sales to be 4,000 annually in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), compared to 1,200 units last year in the UAE.
Their market share in the auto market of UAE is 8 per cent, with aims to increase it to 10 per cent in 2015, officials said. Within the passenger vehicles market (excluding large vehicles and mini-bus), their share is 12 per cent.
Their overall sales in the UAE amounted to 26,000 units last year with expectations of selling 65,000 units in the GCC market this year.
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