Audi October Sales Up 5.3%

Anthony Fontanelle
November 13, 2007

Audi AG, the luxury automotive arm of Volkswagen AG, recently announced that its global sales worldwide rose by 5.3 percent in October compared to last year’s. The Ingolstadt-based maker of the TT and A4, among others, said that it sold 76,900 cars last month, up from the 73,050 it sold in October 2006.

That put the company on course to surpass its goal of selling 950,000 cars by the end of the year, said Ralph Weyler, who oversees marketing and sales at the company. "Owing to last month's results, we are extremely confident about the final months of 2007," he said. In the January-October period, the carmaker has so far sold 818,200 cars worldwide, up 8 per cent from the 757,763 it sold in the first 10 months of 2006.

Demand was strong in the United States, where sales rose 15.4 percent in October with 7,421 cars sold, while demand in Britain pushed sales higher by 12.8 percent to 7,066, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. In Germany, its home market, Audi sold 23,742 cars last month, up 5.5 per cent from last year.

But the company’s biggest raise came in Asia and the Pacific where it sold 10,100 cars, up 17.9 percent from a year ago. China, to note, saw an increase of 24.8 percent. To date, the company has sold 83,863 cars in China, including Hong Kong. "We are aiming to sell more than 100,000 vehicles in China this year," Weyler said.

"We want to slightly exceed the stated goal of global sales of 950,000 vehicles by the end of the year," Weyler told Reuters.

Shares of Audi were up nearly 3.2 percent to 743 euros ($A1,178) in Frankfurt.

The German automaker has been an almost wholly owned with 99.7 percent subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group since 1964. The company evolved from Auto Union, NSU, Horch and DKW, the former having incorporated the historic Audi company which was founded in 1910.

The maker of Audi A8 parts has earlier started offering a computerized control system for its lineup. The feature is called Multi Media Interface (MMI). According to some reports, MMI served as an improvement on BMW's iDrive.

The automaker said that MMI requires less menu-surfing with its mass of buttons surrounding a central knob, with shortcuts to the radio or phone functions. The screen is mounted on the upright dashboard, and on the A6 and A8, the controls are mounted horizontally. Additionally, an "MMI Like" system is also available on the Audi A3 and A4 cars when equipped with the optional Navigation System.

Source:  Amazines.com