Audi: Record Sales, Full Order Books, Life Is Good

“The first half of the year was clearly better than we had expected,” said Audi’s sales chief Peter Schwarzenbauer. Audi delivered more than 652,950 cars worldwide in the first six months of the year, an increase of 17.7 percent on the same period in 2010, and a new record in the annals of Audi.

Audi’s results definitely are not caused by channel-stuffing. Quite the opposite is true. Audi cannot keep up with demand. According to the German magazine Focus, the average waiting time for an Audi stands at 5.3 months. The wait for a Q7 is 10 months. By comparison, a new S-Class Mercedes can be in a German driveway three to seven weeks after the order has been placed. For all intents and purposes, Audi’s order books are filled for the rest of the year.

With that Book-to-Bill ratio, Audi should be able to maintain its current growth of 17 percent witout breaking a sweat. Which would mean somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.3 million Audis sold globally by year’s end. Sales will also be driven by new volume models, such as the Audi Q3, and the A6 Avant. Higher sales are also expected from red-hot China. The plant in Changchun had been capacity constrained. The plant has just added 50 percent more capacity, good for another 100,000 Audis, in addition to the 200,000 possible before. Looking at the grid above, one will conclude that Audi will need more capacity in China. Of the 140,699 units sold in China in the first 6 months, 113,396 were made in China.

However BMW has outsold Audi with 689,861 units delivered in the first six months of the year, and a growth of 17.8 percent, as Automotive News [sub] reports. Mercedes came in third with 610,531 units in the first half, for a sedate growth of 9.7 percent.It could turn into a neck-on-neck race between the two Bavarian brands, BMW and Audi.