“Budgets for buying a boat can be divided in three: €5,000-€10,000 for a fishing boat, €20,000-€60,000 for a medium-priced boat, and the third category requiring a budget starting at €70,000 and reaching €120,000,” the company’s owner, businessman Gabriel Hanganu, told Business Standard.
Hanganu expects most of the sales to be for medium-priced boats, followed by smaller boats. “This is slightly different, because the strategy of our competitors is to bet on large, expensive, luxury boats. It is somewhat mistaken that these are considered luxury boats, because there are small wooden boats, hand-made, which cost as much as a 15-meter yacht. The luxury notion is badly used on the Romanian market,” he added.
Hanganu, who led the local subsidiary of international pharmaceutical producer Pfizer until 2000, said that the Western European boat market is focused on the middle price segment.
The company is estimating €1.5 million in turnover for the first 12 months of operations and €2 mln in 2009. Its main competitors are Neptun Yacht, American Nautics and Franco’s Marina.
