Singapore’s only Alfa Romeo dealership is about to close its doors. Capella Auto, which sells both Alfa Romeo and Jeep, both part of the Stellantis group, will cease operations next June 2025, selling off its inventory over the next five months. The announcement was made by Tracy Teo, marketing director of Capella Auto, in recent discussions with The Straits Times, specifying that the dealership will continue to provide maintenance, repair, and warranty services to existing customers until mid-2025, when it will definitively close.
Jeep and Alfa Romeo dealership closes in Singapore after selling only 20 Alfas and 24 Jeeps in 2024
The closure was inevitable considering that the Alfa Romeo brand, like Jeep, is certainly not popular in Singapore, a city-state where a BMW costs millions of dollars and where electric cars essentially don’t exist. The dealership opened in April 2023, but less than two years from that date, it’s already time to shut down.
The competition from German brands, particularly BMW and Mercedes, is too strong. Despite exorbitant prices due to Singapore’s huge taxes, they still sell much more than Alfa Romeo. The dealership sold only 20 Alfa Romeo cars in 2024, while Jeep did slightly better with 24 vehicles. 2023 was even worse, with 10 Alfa Romeos and 19 Jeeps registered. In contrast, BMW delivered more than 5,000 vehicles last year, while in 2023 they had stopped at 3,379.
According to Victor Kwan, a professor at the Singapore University of Social Sciences and automotive expert, Alfa Romeo’s positioning wasn’t clear enough to enable mass purchases by Singapore residents. Consequently, the brand is seen as being on par with Citroen and Renault, rather than German brands like Mercedes, whose C-Class costs 250,000 dollars in that region.
“Brand perception can vary from market to market, but in Alfa Romeo’s case, people might not even know its country of origin,” Kwan explained. The situation is similar for Jeep: “Although the name is used as a generic term for sport utility vehicles, the average consumer probably can’t name the models in Jeep’s range.”