An Investigation on Definition, Identification and Categorization of Luxury Cars in India

-India is becoming a major consumer of luxury goods in the last two decades the reasons are obvious i.e the increased purchasing power of the consumer, and other demographic, sociological and psychological factors. India being the largest in terms of population with China, the needs, wants, desires and demand of the consumer is more and has a variety also. Car is more a dream than a need in India. But luxury brands like BMW, Audi and Mercedes is more desirable in the Indian society. The reason is esteem associated with those brands. It is something which reflects a changing lifestyle pattern of a class which is called affluent class. The growth rate for these cars with a price tag which is above Rs. 25 lacs has grown 20% on an average since a few years. When the whole world was facing recession the Indian luxury car market grew by 23% as per the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) despite considerable percent decline in passenger car sales. Year 2010 has shown growth in the luxury automobile sector which was up by 25%. Indian luxury car market was dominated by Mercedes Benz who entered in India in 1994 until 2009 where it was outscored by BMW which entered India in 2006.Similary Audi, Volvo and Jaguar-Land Rover also entered the Indian market and the market share was distributed among these players. Since then there has been stiff competition between these brands. This paper basically deals with identification of a car to qualify as luxury.