Audi global sales target hit with still one month to go

Audi continues to grow at a double-digit rate as the company reported worldwide deliveries up 10.9 percent on the same month of 2011 to around 123,600 automobiles.

Since January, the premium carmaker has handed over around 1,344,750 cars (+12.7 percent) to customers, exceeding last year’s record sales after 11 months of the current year. Sales for the whole of 2011 reached 1,302,659 units. Amid difficult market conditions, Audi ended the past month in Europe marginally down on the strong prior-year level (-1.9 percent). Audi’s sales total for Europe is up 3.5 percent for the period of January through November. In all other regions, the Ingolstadt carmaker again achieved significant growth in November, most notably in China (up 25.9 percent) and the United States (up 24.4 percent).

“We are experiencing strong demand in the United States: Audi is growing clearly faster in the US market as a whole, especially in the prestigious full-size class,” says Luca de Meo, member of the board of management of AUDI AG for sales and marketing: “We will massively expand our successful US diesel range into the full-size class next year with TDI clean diesel versions of the A6, A7 and A8.”

A TDI version of the Audi Q5, which is very popular among US customers, will also go on sale in 2013. This efficiency technology has been available in the United States for the Audi A3 and Q7 since 2009. At present, around one-third of Q7 customers in the United States choose a TDI, and an impressive half of all A3 customers—much higher levels than forecast at the time of their market launch.

Audi of America saw the sales totals for all models increase by 18.6 percent to 124,469 cars between January and November; for the A6, A7 Sportback, Q7 and A8 full-size models, the cumulative growth rate reached 42.0 percent. November’s rise in sales for the four rings of 24.4 percent to 12,067 units was also driven by high demand for the A4 and A5 family and for the Q5. The SUV’s new generation including the Q5 hybrid quattro was fully available on the US market for the first time in November.

November’s sales performance in Canada (+29.6 percent to 1,630 cars) and Mexico (+30.1 percent to 976 cars) meant the region’s two other markets confirmed Audi’s high rate of growth in North America.

In China, Audi enjoyed its most successful sales month ever, with 37,600 automobiles delivered. The 25.9-percent sales increase compared with the prior-year month was driven mainly by the locally built Q5 and A6 L models. For the first 11 months of the year, the premium manufacturer’s unit sales in China thus climbed 30.7 percent to 370,559 cars. November brought growth rates comfortably into double figures in many other markets in the Asia-Pacific region, for instance in Japan (+26.1 percent to 2,050 cars), South Korea (+57.6 percent to 1,418 cars) and especially India, where Audi started local production of the Q7 at the start of the month. The Ingolstadt-based company delivered 805 premium automobiles to customers in India, 89.4 percent up on one year earlier.

Worldwide sales growth for Audi in November was fueled especially by the brand’s SUV models. Alongside the Q3, Q5 and Q7, the new A3 three-door version attracted extra customers to dealerships: The compact model, which went on sale in its first markets at the end of August, improved on its predecessor’s delivery total for November 2011 by almost half.