10.5 percent. That’s the number that Audi AG has grown by worldwide over the course of 2014, and with a number of remarkable achievements along the way as well. In the United States alone, Audi’s growth is roughly 3 times the rate of market expansion, which is definitely good news for the automotive group.
One of the largest propellant of sales is the introduction of the A3 and it’s numerous variants to markets around the world. What was once a more Europe-oriented vehicle has quickly made serious inroads in various markets thanks to the development of the A3 Sedan. In countries like the United States especially, hatchbacks aren’t particularly popular amongst car buyers. The A3 Sedan helps to overcome this issue.
Brazil also saw massive sales growth, thanks to Audi’s interest in resuming production after 8 years of inactivity. Audi has decided to invest a lot of money in the region in a bid to beat their German peers in terms of production figures and sales- and no doubt part of this investment is in growing dealer networks in order to provide a better outlet for their models.
Back in 2009, Audi was close to a million units a year in terms of overall worldwide sales. Through 2014, the figure has nearly doubled- roughly an 85% increase over the last 5 years. A great number of models have been released since 2009, both models that succeed previous generations, as well as entirely new model ranges. The A1, A5, and A7 were only developed and launched in the last 5 years- as well as the Q3 and the Q5. With the new models also came new RS models, which helped to increase the popularity of Audi’s motorsport division.
Rather interesting to note is that roughly a third of all Audi customers chose a model from their SUV range. The luxury SUV trend is far from dying, and even companies like Bentley are quickly wising up and scrambling to develop their own luxury SUV models before the market reaches saturation.
