AAA AUTO chose Katowice to open its second branch in Poland. The new car center has been opened mainly for car buying, gradually preparing itself for the start of full service, which will be launched within several weeks. Selling area will cover up to 2 hectares.
In the first stage, the new Katowice AAA AUTO car center – located at 91 Roździeńskiego Av. – spans 2 800 sq. meters of land with the capacity of up to 145 cars for the start with possibility to expand to 2 hectares with almost 1 000 cars. The branch created 21 jobs in the first phase and is operational since the beginning of December.
The new branch opening is part of the international expansion plan announced after last year’s change of the company´s majority shareholder, which is now the British-Polish private equity investment fund Abris Capital Partners.
„Our plans for Katowice are very ambitious. The location is probably one of the best in the whole AAA AUTO Group, in the close proximity to large shopping mall, i.e. with huge natural traffic. Thus we are glad we have a possibility to expand from the current 2 800 sq. meters to up to 2 hectares in the future. In the first stage, we plan to offer 100 cars by the end of this year and then gradually grow to 500 by mid 2016. We started our business in Katowice by first buying cars, now we are in the soft-selling ‘testing’ phase. We expect the full operation to commence soon. Anybody visiting our Katowice branch can also remotely select one of the several hundred cars available in our other Polish branch and after payment of a deposit, have it delivered to Katowice” – said Przemyslaw Vonau, CEO of AAA AUTO Poland.
The first Polish branch of the company was opened in Piaseczno in April this year. Also, over twenty operators at AAA AUTO’s call centers are taking care of Polish customers. The number of operators will be now expanded to around 30 and the Polish operations will be mainly handled by the call center in the Czech Republic’s Ostrava by Polish operators recruited in the area around Rybnik and Wodzisław.
The opening of new AAA AUTO branch in Katowice was also welcomed by the mayor of Katowice, Marcin Krupa: „Katowice as the heart of two-million metropolitan area, is a well-connected city, dynamically developing in many areas. We efficiently attract investors, which in turn enables us to create new job opportunities and constantly extend our offer to the citizens. Therefore we are pleased that AAA AUTO decided to open up its branch here in Katowice.”
AAA AUTO has a complex expansion plan for Poland. „We will be investing approximately EUR 2 million on each dealership, which includes construction and refurbishment costs as well as investing in the stock of vehicles to be sold” – added Vonau.
AAA AUTO specializes in cars after one or two owners, with verified service history, which are being sold with the warranty of legal origin. The cars are subject of thorough inspection process during buying, which results in 65-70% of cars being refused due to technical or legal faults. The main difference against the local market is that AAA AUTO is buying all cars to its possession and thus is not acting as a middle man. This gives a certainty to customers regarding the origin of the car, they know who is the real owner.
The AAA AUTO Group has been in business for 23 years. It has a network of 39 branches in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. Since the Group’s founding, it served over 1,6 million customers. The group’s audited revenues in 2014 were EUR 437 million, and in the same year, AAA AUTO sold a total of 63 613 cars. The company also sells ‘good as new’ cars under its old-new brand name Mototechna in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.