Honda Motor Co. announced plans to roll out its Acura brand in Brazil starting 2015. The Japanese company joins a number of carmakers aiming to market their luxury vehicles in the South American country. Making the announcement at the Sao Paulo auto show was no less than Honda chief executive Takanobu Ito. Carmakers from around the world are racing to take a piece of the developing Brazilian luxury car market, which has grown almost sevenfold in five years. General Motors' South American chief Jaime Ardila described Brazil as a place where rich are becoming richer in Brazil, remarking it is now time to consider selling Cadillac in the country. Brazil has become a good place to sell luxury products, primarily because of the rising wages in the country. However, both Honda and GM said that luxury vehicles sales in Brazil are still too faint to consider making the country a production hub for their luxury products.
On the other hand, German carmaker BMW AG, has decided to invest around EUR200 million ($261 million) in a factory in the country. The decision was announced Monday following a meeting between BMW executives and President Dilma Rousseff. BMW’s new factory in Santa Catarina will commence production by the end of 2014 at an output rate of around 30,000 vehicles annually, according to Vice Chairman Ian Robertson.
The figure is double the around 15,000 imported vehicles that BMW sold in Brazil in 2011, allowing the German carmaker to grab almost a third of Brazil's high-end vehicle segment. It should be noted that luxury vehicles account for just 1.3 percent of sales in Brazil. In August 2012, Ford Motor Co. announced that would bring its luxury Lincoln brand to China within two years. Ford global sales chief Jim Farley disclosed Monday that Ford has no plans to bring the brand to Brazil.
