Maserati sacrifices exclusivity to compete with BMW, Mercedes, Audi

Maserati the exclusive luxury sport car manufacturer is shifting focus towards a lower-end market. This fall the Fiats owned company is going to introduce its Maserati Ghibli – mid-sized sedan priced around $65 000. The Italian subsidiary doesnt hide hopes of stealing market share from established brands such as BMW, Mercedes and Audi. Maserati combines unconventional looks with high quality technology and power provided by Ferrari.

“We have to steal buyers from the Germans,” says Benedetto Orvietani, a product development manager at Maserati. “We are going after their most demanding customers, the ones that are bored with their Audi A6 and want to stand out.” he added cited by Businessweek.

Maserati aims to deliver at least 20,000 cars this year, more than triple last year’s total. In 2015, the automaker expects to sell about 20,000 Ghibli sedans which is 40% of the brand’s overall sales target. The Ghibli is a part of larger expansion by the auto brand, which includes this year’s re-make of the $130,000 Quattroporte flagship and the debut of its first sport-utility vehicle, the Levante, by 2015. Fiat is investing about $1.6 billion to revive Maserati. Furthermore, Ferrari is hiring 200 workers at its Maranello factory to build engines for the brand.

Brands like BMW, Mercedes well established on mid-size sedan market, won’t be easy to beat. Researcher IHS Automotive predicts Maserati will fall short of its goal, delivering 31,300 cars in 2015 and only 9,900 Ghiblis. “It’s very tough to win against the Germans,” says Gianluca Spina, dean of Milan Polytechnic’s business school for Businessweek. Maserati “may be positioned too high to be stretched into midsize luxury sedans. For sure, it’s the most lucrative segment of the market, and the strength of German car-makers comes from having created it.”

Improving Maserati’s global popularity is key to the effort of Fiats CEO Sergio Marchionne, to end losses in Europe, which totaled of more than $800 million last year. Fiat is counting on overseas demand for higher-margin luxury cars to deliver profit and to keep workers busy.

Fiats share price plunged 2.66% but remained up 36.27% on a year to date basis.