Audi on track to a record year

Updated: 2011-09-14 08:06

By Gong Zhengzheng (China Daily)

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Audi on track to a record year

German premium carmaker Audi AG is well on track to achieve its target to move 300,000 vehicles this year in China after posting record monthly sales in August.

China sales of the brand with four inter-locked rings surged by 26 percent year-on-year to 27,858 vehicles last month, according to the Audi Sales Division of Sino-German joint venture FAW Volkswagen Automobile Co.

In the first eight months of this year, Audi's sales jumped 28.69 percent to 194,443 units.

The company said in a statement that 2011 will be Audi's "record year" in China.

An Tiecheng, president of FAW Volkswagen, announced earlier this year that Audi's sales in China are expected to reach 300,000 vehicles in 2011, up from 225,588 units last year.

The figure will help the brand retain its reign in China's luxury car market even as sales by arch-rivals Mercedes-Benz and BMW are also growing rapidly.

Audi, owned by Volkswagen Group, is the provider of the VIP fleet for the Summer Davos World Economic Forum that opens today in the northeast China port city Dalian. It is the auto partner for the event for the fifth consecutive session.

The VIP fleet consists of 60 China-made Audi A6L sedans and 40 imported all-new A8L sedans.

FAW Volkswagen now builds the Audi A6L, A4L sedan and Q5 SUV as well as a range of Volkswagen models.

The company plans to more than double its annual production at Audi to 700,000 units by 2015.

Production capacity for the luxury brand at the company's home base in Changchun in northeast China will rise to 500,000 units a year.

The joint venture's newly approved plant in Guangdong in the south has a planned capacity of 200,000 units annually.

Audi and FAW Volkswagen jointly established a technical R&D center in Changchun this year that will design auto bodies next year for Audi. The technical center will have 1,130 employees by 2015, up from more than 800 now.

The joint venture plans to produce Audi's full lineup in its "A, B, C segments" - or compact, mid-sized and large-sized cars - in the next couple of years.

Audi's all-new A6 sedan will be built at the joint venture before the end of this year and hit the market in the first quarter of 2012. The venture will also assemble the Audi Q3 small SUV next year.

The joint venture will produce petrol-electric hybrids of the Audi A6 and Q5 next year and begin R&D on purely electric Audi cars.

The automaker said it will launch its A1 subcompact and A7 sedan as imports in China later this year.

In the first eight months of the year, Audi's China sales included 159,046 locally made A6L, A4L and Q5 vehicles and 35,397 imports such as the A8L, Q7 SUV, TT, A5, A3 and R8.

(China Daily 09/14/2011 page40)