Audi sales up 9.8 percent in July

Ingolstadt – Successful beginning to the second half of the year: AUDI AG delivered around 131,300 cars to customers in July, representing an increase of 9.8 percent year-on-year. Especially the brand’s SUV sales made a significant contribution to this growth. Demand for the models with the four rings made particularly strong gains in China, up 27 percent. Worldwide, Audi sold a total of around 911,800 cars in the first seven months of the year, thereby increasing deliveries by 6.9 percent.

“After a strong first half of the year, we expect to surpass our strategic target of 1.5 million deliveries this year, two years earlier than planned,” says Luca de Meo, Member of the Board of Management for Sales at AUDI AG. “This is also underlined by our deliveries in July, which we were able to increase thanks primarily to strong demand for the new A3 family and our Q3 and Q5 SUV models.”

Following the successful launch of the Sportback version in February, around 113,600 customers received the keys for a model from the A3 family from January through July (+9 percent). In this period, sales of the Q3 compact SUV increased by 61.9 percent, while those of the Q5 rose by 17.1 percent. For both SUV models combined, a total of around 50,900 more units were sold than one year previously.

In China in particular, these SUVs drew large crowds to dealers and contributed significantly to the strong results for the month. Unit sales for Audi climbed by 27.0 percent in July to 41,766 cars sold. In addition to the Q3 and Q5, both of the other locally manufactured models reported significant increases: the A4 L was up 20.9 percent and the A6 L up 21.5 percent. Altogether, Audi exceeded the year-on-year figure for deliveries in China by 19.0 percent (269,905 units) in the first seven months.

Audi continues to post strong double-digit growth in the entire Asia-Pacific region: up 19.1 percent from January through July. Significant growth was achieved in this period in Japan, for instance, with an 18.9 percent increase in sales and in South Korea, where Audi sales rose by 30.4 percent.

In the first seven months, the company also enjoyed double-digit growth in the North America region with a 13.7 percent increase. The United States was the crucial growth driver here. Audi of America was able to deliver 87,341 cars to customers during this period, representing an increase of 13.6 percent. In the month of July alone, 13,064 deliveries represented an increase of 11.6 percent.

The Q5 made the largest volume contribution in the last month, and the full-size category also grew at a disproportionate rate in July, with a sales increase of 26 percent. The diesel versions of the A6 and A7, just launched in the U.S. market, will strengthen this segment for Audi further in the upcoming months. The A8 TDI has already been available at dealers since April.

In Europe, Audi managed to finish out the month of July at levels close to those of the previous year (-0.2 percent) despite challenging economic conditions on the domestic continent. The company currently remains slightly below the 2012 figure for the first seven months of the year with sales of around 443,350 cars, representing a decline of 2.2 percent. However, these results indicate that Audi’s performance was more stable than the European market as a whole. In Germany, sales declined by 4.8 percent to 150,249 deliveries in the first seven months of the year. In July, the difficult economic environment continued to make its presence felt in the markets hit hard by the crisis such as France (-6.1 percent), Italy (-3.6 percent) and Spain (-1.6 percent). Audi business in Europe was strengthened in the past month by Russia, with a 7.1 percent increase in deliveries, and by the United Kingdom. Here, demand for models with the four rings increased by 18.9 percent to 10,550 units. This growth was driven by models in the full-size category in particular, sales of which climbed by 32 percent.