Rosie Blau : And, say Ferrari, and we can all summon up the slick, super-fast car. Not quite so many of us actually own them. And given the cost, most of us never will. So how is the company still doing so well?
And the answer?
Rosie Blau: [00:24:38] So basically they’re charging rich customers ever more for a slightly better car.
Tom Lee-Devlin: Exactly. I mean, you can see this in the way that they’ve really been pushing personalization. So custom paint jobs, carbon fibre, and they’re often able to add 20% to the price of a car, which is pretty impressive, given that on average they’re going for 500,000 euros. And the company has also really proven to be very resistant to the Trumpian tariffs. No sign of a slowdown in America. It has really incredibly loyal customers and 80% of them are already owners of other Ferraris. And it keeps really close contact with these customers. It has 180 dealerships worldwide. And it tries to kind of draw these avid collectors into an inner circle.
And its boss since 2021, Benedetto Vigna, has been a huge hit with investors. He was considered a slightly odd choice at first. He’s a theoretical physicist by background. He used to work in the semiconductor industry before Ferrari, but he’s widely considered to have done a stellar job.
Vigna's team developed the three-axis accelerometer, a three-dimensional motion sensor which was initially applied to the airbags of automobiles. After reducing its size and cost, the sensor was used in the Nintendo Wii console's wireless controller and iPhone's screen rotation feature. For this invention, Vigna was included in the shortlist of twelve candidates for the "European Inventor 2010" award promoted by European Patent Organization. In his career he has registered more than two hundred patents.
So, the company has done a fantastic job of growing while still really adhering to this ethos that its founder Enzo had of selling one less car than the market demands.
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