Although Audi posted record sales throughout 2016, the German luxury carmaker failed to maintain growth in the first three months of the year.
China had a major impact, as the country was responsible for purchasing 108,707 cars, or 22.1 percent less year-on-year, dragging global deliveries number down to 422,600, a 7.3 percent drop.
“As expected, we have put a difficult first quarter behind us. In light of the very positive feedback to our model initiative, we remain confident for the rest of the year. Successively, new key models will become fully available in many markets. In China we took a major step forward with our partners over the past few weeks, and we jointly aim to achieve an even stronger setting for the future“, Audi’s Board Member for Sales and Marketing, Dietmar Voggenreiter, said.
Nevertheless, Audi registered increases in all other regions. In Europe, sales were boosted by 2.0 percent, to 226,750 units, with Germany remaining the biggest player, followed by the UK, Italy, France and Spain, in this order.
In the USA, deliveries rose by 8.8 percent, to 45,647 units, pulled by the increased SUV demand that saw the total sales of the Q3, Q5 and Q7 reach a combined 22,962, exceeding the 2016 reference number by 19.4 percent.
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