New Sales Record for Audi: Best Nine Months in Company’s History

Audi sold 684,700 vehicles worldwide in the first nine months of this year, an increase of 8.4 percent compared with the same period of the previous year (January to September 2005: 631,560). Audi likewise established a new sales record for September itself, with 83,200 vehicles delivered to their new owners, a gain of 7.3 percent on the same month of 2005. This was consequently the best September and the best nine-month period in the company’s history. “This builds on Audi’s successful trend. We are well on course to establishing our eleventh sales record in succession for the year as a whole. By virtue of high customer demand, we have revised our sales forecast upwards. We are now expecting to sell 890,000 vehicles in the course of this year. In other words, we expect to acquire more than 60,000 new customers in 2006,” remarked Ralph Weyler, Member of the Board of Management of AUDI AG for Marketing and Sales.

In the first nine months, Audi succeeded in selling 506,700 vehicles in Europe, an increase of 4.5 percent (2005: 484,664). The figure for September itself likewise rose, with Audi reporting 60,800 vehicles sold (57,154, 6.4 percent).

Audi also grew in the USA with 62,579 vehicles delivered to their new owners in the year to September, an increase of 4.9 percent (2005: 59,656). Audi sales equally rose in the month of September with 8,004 vehicles shipped to their new owners, a gain of 1.9 percent (2005: 7,854).

Audi achieved its biggest rates of growth in China (including Hong Kong): the brand with the four rings enjoyed growth of 64.9 percent there, to a total of 60,467 units (2005: 36,658). As at September, therefore, vehicle sales had already surpassed the total for the entire previous year. Sales of Audi vehicles there in September 2006 were likewise very healthy. 7,877 units, or 31.5 percent more than in the same month of the previous year, were delivered to customers (2005: 5,991). Audi is consequently the market leader by some distance in the Chinese premium segment, and the fastest-growing premium brand.

The individual models that made the biggest contribution to these record sales figures were the Audi A3 (183,900 vehicles, + 12.1 percent), the Audi A4 Cabriolet (23,800 vehicles, +16.6 percent), the Audi A6 (177,800 vehicles, + 15.2 percent), the Audi A8 (17,200 vehicles, + 8.9 percent) and the Audi Q7 (32,900 vehicles).

“We have just unveiled the new Audi R8 at Paris to a rapturous reception from the public, and will also be giving the TT Roadster its first showing before the end of the year. The response to the successor of the Audi TT Coupé, which arrived at dealers one month ago, is likewise very good. In conjunction with the success of our current product range, we have every reason to view the last quarter of the year with considerable optimism,” added Weyler.

*) Figures in brackets are the corresponding prior-year figures, or rates of increase for 2006 compared with 2005