Audi: Market shares up further in March

INGOLSTDT, GERMANY – April 6, 2009: AUDI AG continued to expand its market shares in March. In both the United States and Western Europe, Audi fared better than the overall market. The Ingolstadt car maker achieved its best monthly result of all time in China. Worldwide Audi sold 90,400 cars in March – 10.7 percent fewer than in the same month of record year 2008 (2008: 101,251).

“Thanks in part to the successfully launched Audi Q5, our order intake is now significantly increasing,” says Peter Schwarzenbauer, Member of the Board of Management for Marketing and Sales at AUDI AG. “The trend is positive: Our monthly results have been continually improving since January, a difficult month for everybody.”

The Ingolstadt car maker put its second SUV, positioned below the Audi Q7, on the U.S. market at the end of February. As in Europe, here too sales exceeded expectations in the first month of sales. Altogether, Audi fared better in the United States than its key competitors and significantly better than the overall market, with a decline of 19.4 percent to 6,433 cars (2008: 7,986). Audi increased its share in the premium market by 1.3 percentage points to 7.8 percent. In North and South America combined, Audi sold nearly 8,500 cars in March on the American continent – 14.5 percent fewer than in the preceding year (2008: 9.946).

In Canada sales of the Ingolstadt premium brand went up considerably in March: 979 customers bought an Audi, a year-on-year rise of 25.4 percent on March 2008 (2008: 781).

In Western Europe, Audi sold 61,200 cars in March – a decline of 12.9 percent (2008: 70,269). The Ingolstadt car maker thus fared comparably well in a difficult overall market: Audi’s market share is currently expected to reach 4.3 percent (2008: 4.1 percent). Thanks above all to the new Audi Q5, the brand was able to increase sales in six European markets relative to the preceding year. In Austria, for example, Audi sold 1,830 cars, or 12.8 percent more vehicles than in March 2008 (2008: 1,622); in Switzerland sales of 1,318 units marked an increase of 3.7 percent over the preceding year (2008: 1,271). In the Netherlands 6.6 percent more buyers chose an Audi than in 2008 (1468 cars; 2008: 1,377).

In the region Asia-Pacific, Audi increased its sales by about 5 percent compared with the preceding year (2008: 14,909), with a total of around 15,600 cars sold – thanks especially to the success in China, its second-largest foreign market in March. Here, the brand with the four rings recorded its strongest month of all time: 11,848 cars sold in China (including Hong Kong) represented a further increase of 6.6 percent compared with the impressive figure of March last year (2008: 11,117). This success is primarily attributable to the newly launched long-wheelbase version of the Audi A4. Other markets in the region in which Audi recorded sales growth last month were Australia, India and Singapore.