The expansive facility in Umm Al Nar houses separate showrooms and sales areas for the three premium automobile brands, BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, and for BMW motorcycles
We’ve heard the name Umm Al Nar before. In fact its BMW’s very own super luxury automobile subsidiary Rolls-Royce
that introduced us to the facility in Abu Dhabi when it inaugurated its
lavishly laid out 900 square-meter showroom there in early 2011, making
it the largest in the world.
Come 2012, 900 seems like a nominal figure as the BMW
Group has just taken a gigantic leap forward and pretty much re-defined
the meaning of a typically large automobile showroom by opening the
world’s largest showroom for BMW, MINI, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars and BMW
motorcycles at the very same expansive facility in Umm Al Nar in the
Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
Housing separate showrooms and sales
areas for all of its premium automobile brands and BMW motorcycles, the
group has employed over 450 staff members for the work at the 35,000
square-meter showroom. Here customers can view the brands’ entire model
line-up in different colours and different option packages, with more
than 70 automobiles and 10 motorcycles on permanent display.
Owing to its exceptionally large showroom area, the facility will
also include an extensive range of newer pre-owned vehicles and a
state-of-the-art service area equipped with the latest technology. Here
BMW engineers can comfortably perform maintenance on up to 120 vehicles
simultaneously.
At the opening of the BMW Group’s largest
showroom worldwide, Ian Robertson, member of the Board of Management of
BMW AG, responsible for Sales and Marketing thanked the investors and
owners for their strong commitment in completing the new building, and
said “The Middle East is an important region for the BMW Group. The AED
300 million investment in this impressive and unique facility that makes
the world’s biggest BMW Group showroom, is testament to the continued
opportunities that lie ahead in Abu Dhabi and in the region.”
Yet to tap the full potential of this enormous retail
opportunity BMW’s next focus will be the facility’s extensive shopping
and boutique area, where it will eventually sell a wide selection of BMW
and MINI fashion items and other merchandise, as well as original parts
and accessories. A private cinema for new-vehicle presentations, a café
and a Formula One racing simulator are among other visitor
entertainment zones that should attract a lot of footfalls at this new
facility.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has accounted for
more than 47 percent of deliveries for the BMW Group in 2011, with a
total of 18,657 BMW and MINI brand vehicles sold last year in the
region’s 14 import markets. With an ever growing market for BMW’s
products in this region, the presence of the world’s largest showroom at
Abu Dhabi is more a celebration of the company’s unrelenting success in
the Middle East.
