MG boss says other manufacturers are giving it opportunities as they change their UK approach

3:58 pm, November 6, 2020

MG Motor UK has been seizing the moment, according to boss Daniel Gregorious, who says its receiving more opportunities as other brands change their UK approach.

The announcement that Mitsubishi would be leaving the UK market is one of those opportunities that has opened up for MG, but it’s not the only one Gregorious explained on Car Dealer Live today.

He said: ‘We’re speaking to people from the Mitsubishi network at the moment.

‘Certainly, we’ve seen other brands, partly as a result of Brexit, who have changed their approach to the UK market, particularly European manufacturers.

‘That has opened up showroom space for us where we perhaps didn’t expect to have showroom space opened.

‘I wouldn’t say it’s one brand but certainly a few brands that have changed their approach to the UK and given us an opportunity.’

The relatively new Chinese version of the British brand MG has been making a splash in the UK since its new electric models were announced, too.

MG has plans for more than half of cars sold to be electric by the end of 2021 and the MG boss commented that ‘we’ll be 100 per cent electric before any of our competitors’.

He explained: ‘I wouldn’t be coming on here and saying we’ll have 51 per cent electric next year if supply wasn’t confident.

‘We can get as many as our dealers can sell.

‘Our message to our dealers is to go out there confidently, we can supply much quicker than our competitors can.’

However, for dealers, it seems, it’s not been quite the same picture. At least that’s what we were told in this year’s Car Dealer Power survey.

MG’s head of sales and marketing Gregorious appeared on the show to address some of the negative comments.

He said that once most groups found out the cost and potential return of joining the MG network, they jumped at the chance.

Gregorius commented: ‘When people in those groups, who perhaps weren’t considering MG before, look at what we can offer, the low cost of coming into the brand, but also the great opportunities they have in profit and sales, the seven-year warranty to build a strong service partner, they grab that opportunity and made it work for them.’

When it came to return-on-investment, MG received one of its highest scores in Car Dealer Power, which wasn’t surprising when Gregorious explained more.

He said: ‘Some dealers have told us that in their second quarter of trading with MG they’ve made a profit.

‘We’ve stacked our business to be profitable on sales because we know the aftersale park is pretty small for a lot of new dealers.

‘One dealer group that started with us recently, we were told by the franchised director that the launch of MG at their site was the best they’d had in 30 years.’