McLaren Automotive sets its sights on becoming a multi-billion dollar business (w/VIDEO)

This weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix was a fitting occasion for McLaren Automotive to announce that its Asia Pacific network will be managed from a wholly-owned McLaren subsidiary, McLaren Automotive Asia Pte Ltd, based in Singapore.

McLaren Automotive Asia Pte Ltd will be responsible for all of McLaren Automotive’s regional operations throughout its Asia Pacific network including importation, distribution, logistics, sales, marketing, technical support and financial services for McLaren’s range of high-performance sports cars.

The wholly-owned McLaren subsidiary will be based in Singapore with an initial team of around 10 McLaren Automotive employees managing retailers in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. Plans are under consideration for expansion into mainland China.

McLaren already have a strong reputation in the region from its Formula One success, having won races in the Asia Pacific region every season since 2007.

One fascinating statistic revealed last night is that around a quarter of all existing McLaren F1 road cars have their homes in the Asia Pacific region, so McLaren Automotive naturally assume existing owners will be keen to add an MP4-12C to their collection and indeed this is borne out by news that the 5 McLaren Automotive retailers in the region already hold an 18 months order book on average.

Ron Dennis, the company’s Chairman, also made his ambitions clear at a press conference last night – to grow into a multi-billion dollar business within the next 10 years.

Dennis confirmed that McLaren’s future was still very much in F1, but that racing would only account for around 10 per cent of the group’s income as other divisions expand.

They aim to sell around 4,000 cars each year (around 1,000 cars have been sold in the MP4-12C’s first trading year), with 43 per cent of sales in North America, 35 per cent in Europe and the rest in the Middle-East and Asia Pac. This compares with around 7,000 cars sold by Ferrari today, although their President Luca di Montezemolo has previously stated their ambition to reach 10,000 cars within the decade.

Dennis is determined to “..reach a turnover in the billions” and he said “we will achieve it.” Watch out Ferrari..