Creating local, digital and clean autos

Audi AG, the Chinese premium market leader, is traversing the burgeoning mobility services business, and tailoring its products to be more relevant for Chinese demands. It is doing so jointly with local partners, who are helping the company transform into a leading digital car company by 2025.

Audi and its local partner FAW-Volkswagen Automobile reached their agreement on Sunday to further expand their domestic lineups in the future, to move forward with a wider localized product range, and to stay ahead of the competition, together.

"The constant growth in the market serves as proof of Audi's strategy for China. Audi will constantly blaze new strategic trails by 2025," said Rupert Stadler, chairman of Audi AG's board of management.

"Our staff at the research and development center are close to our customers, and better understand their demands. Audi will be designing according to customers' preferences in the years up to 2025."

Stadler announced the brand's future-oriented philosophy, "Audi. Vorsprung.", at a freshly designed Audi Brand Summit world debut, in the middle of Shanghai on Saturday. The event will remain in the city's Oriental Sports Center for almost a month, for customers, dealers and employees to experience the premium brand.

He said: "Vorsprung means not only technology, but also breaking ground at the same time. The word stands for both the fastest speed, and the leading position."

"I see 'Vorsprung' as the appeal that Audi has for customers."

Audi has been attaching great importance to customer satisfaction with its products and services in China, and to better understanding Chinese customers' needs, as part of its efforts to maintain its leading position in China.

The company has realized 80 months of consecutive growth in the Chinese market. A total of 384,151 Audis were sold in the first eight months of 2016, 6.9 percent more than in the same period last year.

The localized Audi lineups were the main driver for this significant growth, with a 9.6 percent surge year-on-year to 354,130 units, contributing 92.2 percent to the total.

The company expects that the just-launched localized A4L will lay a solid foundation for an excellent start next year, after the popular product adds significantly to the company's growth for the remainder of this year.

The all-new Audi A4L is geared up with the first locally developed, premium transmission produced at the Volkswagen Automatic Transmission Tianjin facility. The latest transmission will be equipped in the near future in all new locally produced models, to transfer the advantages in efficiency and sustainability to more models.

Audi outperformed its rivals not only in sales volume, but also in customer service. This year again, it ranked number one in the China Customer Service Index Study, and topped the premium brands in China Sales Satisfaction Index Study, J.D. Power announced in July after examining 74 passenger car brands.

The brand stayed ahead of its peers with an incomparable 19 pole positions on the service ranks in China's premium auto market, while the study found overall sales satisfaction in China has declined from last year.

Dietmar Voggenreiter, Audi's board member for sales and marketing, said, "Our heart is attached to China."

To listen to the feedback from the market in a timely manner, Audi is co-working closely with local partners, including dealers, for efficient communications.

Only with high customer satisfaction can Audi achieve a strong position in China, so it is extremely important that Chinese customers are happy with the products and services, according to Voggenreiter.

Audi's Chinese customers are on average some 20 years younger than those in Europe and the United States. The adventurous and pioneering customers born in the 1980s and 1990s now account for 32 percent of Audi's customers.

Stadler said: "The students today are the most important customers for the mobility market tomorrow."

The youth-oriented products, digital technologies and sustainable solutions are contributing to Audi's advantage in the premium car segment.

Future solutions

Visioning the three future tendencies of digitalization, urbanization and sustainability, Audi has come with solutions for challenges in China, North America, and the Europe.

The German brand's answer for metropolises is "Audi at home", developed for seamless urban mobility. Its initial trial has been in practice in Hong Kong's luxury residences.

Audi at home comes to the customer as a smartphone app, which will initiate premium car sharing with exclusive fleets of Audi's A3 e-tron, Q7 e-tron, and TT Roadster.

Voggenreiter sees this as the mobile app for digitalization in a sustainable lifestyle, which eases the mobility bottleneck in urban mega cities.

Stadler hopes that the Audi at home service will attract 10 million active users by 2025.

He said: "Audi combines the premium experience and on-demand mobility services. The new business models will transform old structures, while digitalization allows new business platforms to grow rapidly."

Audi bears the responsibilities in shaping mobility in the cities of tomorrow with urban solutions, contributing to a better environment with zeroemissions cars, giving customers the extra 25th hour with piloted driving, and creating a digital customer journey.

Audi piloted driving will be available to Chinese customers through the new Audi A8 next year, supported by the R&D Center Asia in Beijing. The center, established in 2013, is Audi's largest R&D facility outside Germany.

haoyan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/12/2016 page7)