Audi starts fourth quarter with sales growth

“For the first time in Audi history we have already exceeded the 1.5 million sales mark after just ten months. With the solid start to the fourth quarter we remain on track to closing the challenging year of 2016 with growth,” says Dietmar Voggenreiter, Board Member for Sales and Marketing at AUDI AG. “At the same time we are laying the foundations for our future success and are now rolling out an entirely new model at dealers with the Q2. The strong customer interest even before the market introduction confirms our positive expectations for Audi’s city SUV.”

With the Q2, Audi enters a young, growing premium segment in which the brand has not been represented so far. In early November the SUV model arrived at the first dealerships, initially in Europe. The market introduction of the new A5 Coupé also got underway over the past few days on the home continent of the Four Rings. There, the new A4 has recently been providing a strong impetus, with European deliveries of the model increasing by 8.4 percent to around 11,500 units in October. Across all models, Audi performed particularly well in the past month in the export markets of Northern and Western Europe: In the United Kingdom, 14,337 units sold exceeded the 2015 reference figure by 8.1 percent; 3,977 new Audi drivers in Spain represent an increase of 17.6 percent. In France (+11.5% to 6,129 cars), the brand with the Four Rings managed to build on its accelerated growth of the previous month and grow in all segments. By contrast, the market development in Russia continues to adversely affect European business: down 30.8 percent to 1,491 Russian customers in October. Throughout the entire Europe region, Audi increased sales by 3.6 percent in the month to around 69,800 units; the sales balance since January amounts to deliveries of around 726,850 cars – an increase of 6.9 percent.

In October, Canada was once again the growth engine for Audi in North America: up 10 percent to 2,751 customers. Canada reported 26,152 deliveries since January – 15.2 percent more than one year ago – thus making its way into Audi’s ten largest markets for the first time. As Audi Canada’s most popular model, the Q5 has been continuing to grow (+1.8% to 6,904 cars) even in the final year of sales of the current generation. Its successor will be manufactured directly in the region coming from the new Audi plant in San José Chiapa, Mexico, from 2017 onwards. In the United States, October sales of the entire Audi portfolio (+0.1% to 17,721 cars) were slightly above the 2015 monthly figure. In a declining market, Audi thus managed to achieve growth for the 70th consecutive month. Since January 2011, U.S. demand for Audi models translated into new record-setting figures month after month. In 2016, cumulative sales through the end of October totaled 169,900 automobiles, 2.9 percent more than one year ago.

For North America as a whole, the cumulative balance increased by 4.6 percent to around 208,450 deliveries; sales in the month of October were up 1 percent to around 21,600 units. By contrast, the difficult market development in South America also continued in the past month (-5.5% to around 2,100 cars), sales since January fell 13.3 percent year-on-year with around 19,600 cars delivered in the region.

In China, the past sales month was shortened as dealerships remained closed in the week of the Chinese National Day. 47,032 customers received their new Audi in October, 0.6 percent more than one year ago. 487,265 delivered automobiles from January through October exceeded the 2015 figure by 5.7 percent. The past few weeks have been dominated by the generation changeover for the A4 L, Audi’s third-best-selling model in the market. The next important premiere of the Four Rings will already take place next week: The A6 L e-tron to go on sale will be Audi’s first plug-in hybrid which was developed specially for China and is produced locally.