New York- Despite some disappointments in the first three months of the year, Porsche intends to keeup up its record sales pace set in 2006 in the US, its most important single market. Peter Schwarzenbauer, president of Porsche Cars North America, made the comments to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dap on the sidelines of this week's New York auto show.
The American Porsche branch had record sales of 34,442 vehicles in 2006.
In the first three months this year, however, sales shrunk for the Cayenne SUV and the Boxster/Cayman model to 8,229, down from 9,132 in the same period last year.
But March saw an overall rebound, with a monthly record sales of 3,278 vehicles, 3 per cent more than March 2006.
Slumping interest in the Cayenne was likely connected to the introduction of Cayenne's second generation model, Schwarzenbauer said. Dealers were just now receiving a full line of the models, and he expected a sales surge in the coming months.
Schwarzenbauer was especially proud of sales performance of the 911 models, with a 19 per cent jump in sales for the first three months, to 3,371 vehicles. Target market for these models is the fast growing number of Americans earning more than 200,000 dollars, the income bracket for most American drivers of Porsche sport cars.
Many in this target market are just now getting interested in sport cars, fuelling aggressive sales strategies among Porsche's premium competitors.
But Schwarzenbauer remains unruffled by the challenge. Instead, he says Porsche always profits from any rise in interest in sport cars.
