Porsche debuts Panamera at Shanghai International Auto Show 2009

Porsche claims that its new model luxury sedan Panamera will help it reverse the declining trends in the luxury segement.

 Klaus Berning, Porsche's sales chief said that despite the difficult condition the company is committed to sell at least 20,000 units annually. He was speaking at a briefing before the Shanghai International Auto Show.

The Panamera, the company's first four-person sedan was developed at a cost of 1 billion euros and is built to compete with Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz CLS and Fiat SpA's Maserati Quattroporte.

Berning said the company would have been happy to introduce the sedan in better economic times. He added that the company expected 90 per cent of the customers to be new to the brand.

He said that the US, Europe and rest of the world would each generate about a third of the model's sales.

The company is to launch the car in China in January next year and expects to sell 2,000 units by July. According to the Hurun Report, China is home to 825,000 people with net work in excess of 10 million yuan ($1.5 million).