INFINITI Cars Australia has announced a second dealership will open in Victoria to proportionally balance the three dealers currently in New South Wales, a state that currently hogs 50 per cent of the Japanese luxury brand’s sales.

Speaking at the national media launch of the Infiniti Q60 in Melbourne this week, Infiniti Cars Australia managing director Jean-Philippe Roux said the brand further hoped to capitalise on its new model rollout with an expansion plan for another two to three dealerships in 12 months.

That number is beyond that of the latest announcement of an Infiniti dealership in Doncaster, north-east of Melbourne, to complement the single existing Brighton dealership; as well as a service centre in Newcastle, north of Sydney.

“2016 is our best year ever so far, we are growing very much on the back of our product expansion, also our network expansion,” started Mr Roux.

“We came to market with three dealers in this country, we are now at seven plus two, with two major announcements coming … we are appointing a new service centre in Newcastle, but more importantly in terms of sales and service we will be in a position over the coming weeks to announce Doncaster.

“Doncaster is a very important pillar for our sales as far as Victoria is concerned, to appoint a second dealer in Melbourne. We have three dealers in Sydney, and we will soon be adding a second dealer in Victoria, so a great progress from that perspective.”

October 2016 year-to-date sales for Infiniti have soared to 661 units, up 45.3 per cent compared with the same period last year (455) mainly thanks to the introduction of the Q30/QX30 last month, which has contributed 126 units.

This year the focus has been expanding New South Wales beyond its single Sydney CBD dealership, with premises opening in the south-western suburb of Warwick Farm and affluent north-west Castle Hill showing gains for the brand.

Nationwide total market sales to October prioritise New South Wales (330,967) over Victoria (270,213), however the difference is not as marked as NSW’S dominance with Infiniti volume.

“(Sydney is) currently around 50 per cent of the market,” admitted Mr Roux.

“The lessons are, yes, we need to have a good and balanced coverage of the market, so with three dealers in Sydney we’re confident this is the right number. It’s driving more customers to the brand, it’s giving more trust and confidence to customers in terms of where the brand is at.

“This is why we will be expanding in Melbourne where we are in Brighton currently, but will open in Doncaster, and I think together we will drive more sales to the brand and be attracting new customers to the brand.”

But according to Mr Roux, there needs to be further dealer expansion ahead, which he said will run concurrently with an expanded model range and increased marketing effort.

“We’re still missing some coverage in Melbourne and Sydney, then there are other areas of the market where we are looking at other coverage,” he said.

“But the key priority for us is Melbourne and Sydney. In 12 months if we find a way to cover (more of) Melbourne and Sydney, plus a couple of other open points – two to three PMAs – we’ll be in a good space.

“The network plan and the marketing plan are travelling alongside the product plan, so you can invest when you have some level of network coverage and product coverage. With Q30 back in September we had good network coverage, we decided to invest, and now we have an opportunity to further invest to grow the brand, absolutely.”

Mr Roux also said that a balance of both wider brand marketing and local marketing needed to occur, the latter to let local households know there is a dealership in their area. He claimed of the Sydney expansion: “People around Warwick Farm and Castle Hill now know that there is an Infiniti dealership.”

Infiniti Cars Australia has also worked with AP Eagers, owners of Infiniti Centre Brisbane, to open an “experience store” at Pacific Fair Shopping Centre on Queensland’s Gold Coast, and Mr Roux said the brand has been looking at other opportunities for a brand-focused shopping centre-based store.

“It is very much a learning phase (but) we are extremely happy with Pacific Fair,” he said.

“Are there other opportunities down the line? Yes, we’ll be looking at other shopping centres as an opportunity for us to drive awareness brand wise, and in complement to our current dealer network.”

The brand’s local boss did, however, rule out maintaining the strong growth Infiniti has been enjoying if it were at the expense of profitability for its expanded network.

“It’s not about the growth itself, it’s about making that sustainable growth,” he added.

“Sustainable growth in terms of the dealer network … we’re not doing silly stuff to get to a (sales) number.”

By Daniel DeGasperi