Audi March Car Sales Soar 22% On China Demand
By Christoph Rauwald
FRANKFURT (Dow Jones)--German luxury automaker Audi AG said Thursday that global sales soared 22% on the year in March to 110,400 cars, fueled by strong demand for its A5, Q5 an A4 models, notably in China.
Audi, the premium brand and key earnings contributor of Volkswagen AG, Europe's largest automaker by sales, has a medium term target of overtaking German rivals BMW AG and Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz brand to become the world's biggest maker of premium cars.
It particularly wants to increase sales in the booming Chinese market and the U.S. market to achieve this. It is leading both its rivals in China so far, and thinks sales in China could overtake its sales in Germany this year, but lags in the U.S., a major market for both BMW and Mercedes. Both its rivals are also expecting demand in China and the U.S. to drive the industry's recovery after a gloomy 2009.
Audi sold 19,543 cars in China and Hong Kong last month, up 65% compared with the same month last year. That compares to BMW's near doubling in sales to 12,662 and a 57% rise for Mercedes-Benz to 8,500 vehicles. Audi sold 51,449 cars in China in the first quarter compared with 34,179 for BMW and 24,100 for Mercedes.
Audi is targeting annual car sales of 200,000 in China 2010, up from over 150,000 last year and 118,000 in 2008.
In the first quarter, Audi's global car sales totaled 264,100 vehicles, up 26% compared with the same period 2009. That compared with sales of 248,500 Mercedes-branded cars. BMW is expected to release its global sales figures early next week.
"With these sales results, we have even surpassed the comparative figures from our record year in 2008," said Audi sales chief Peter Schwarzenbauer said in a statement, adding that the Ingolstadt-based firm expects "continued growth compared to last year" in the second quarter. Audi sold about 256,000 cars in the second quarter of 2009.
Audi's sales on its German home turf were up 6.6% in March at 22,217 cars. In total, Western European sales rose by 12% to 68,500 vehicles, while Audi's sales in the U.S. increased by 34% year-on-year to 8,589 cars last month.
Winning over American customers is crucial if Audi is to overtake BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
BMW's U.S. sales rose 3.1% in March to 18,060 vehicles, while Mercedes-Benz sales rose 26% to 19,600.
Audi's sales this year are expected to be fueled by the launch of the new A1, its first foray into the fiercely competitive small-car segment. Audi expects 80% of A1 buyers to be new to the brand and it plans to sell 80,000 A1 cars in the first full year of sales and 100,000 vehicles on average in the following years.
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