Audi Hits The Pedal
Audi is on a roll. In April, the four ringed brand outsold BMW on a global basis. Today, Audi CEO Rupert Stadler promised at the annual shareholders meeting back home in bucolic Ingolstadt that Audi may reach its goal of selling 1.5 million cars per year earlier than planned. The reason: Unabated demand in China, the U.S. and Russia.
In the first four months of the year, Audi’s global deliveries rose 11.7 percent to 471,300 units. Audi sold 1.3 million autos in 2011. It had targeted 2015 as the year to sell more than 1.5 million. (“1.5 in 15” – get it?)
“The way things look at the moment, we may be able to reach this target earlier,” Stadler told his shareholders today, while Reuters was talking notes.
With double-digit growth in China and America, 1.5 in 15 would sound downright timid, nein?
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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It's the Transporter movies. After watching Jason Statham perform with his Audi for 90 minutes, I want to trade in my Regal for a black A8.
Based on aesthetics alone, It doesn't surprise me that Audi is outselling BMW. Audis are re much better-looking, BMW is still on an ugly roll.
"Audi is on a roll. In April, the four ringed brand outsold BMW on a global basis. ... The reason: Unabated demand in China, the U.S. and Russia." Just FYI, Toyota also outsold BMW. My point is, you just can't compare two brands of different price level and perceived status. While Audi products closely followed BMW in terms pricing in North American, they haven't been that way in China. Audi A6 was about the first "luxury" brand midsize car produced in China and had a lower price point and status than imported Camry. Audi's 2012 1st quarter revenue is 12.4B euro, while BMW's is 16.2B euro for the auto segment.
I think it's Audi's shift toward performance and driver focused cars that has really gotten them attention and pushed them towards an even global footing with Daimler and BMW. Think back to when Audi's best mainstream engine was the completely gutless 2.8 V6. The early C5 A6 2.8s weren't fun cars to drive. The Mercedes 3.2L 6 was also pretty weak, but even that engine had more oomph than the Audi, though neither could hold a candle to the 328i and 528i. Audi had a 3.6L V8 and later the famous 4.2L that they offered in the "V8" (yes it was called the Audi V8) but as far as I can tell nobody in the US actually bought one of those. A8s have always been pretty weak sellers, but I've still seen plenty of D3 and D4 examples on the road. I've NEVER seen an Audi "V8". Real Torsen Quattro in the A4+ cars is still arguably superior to xDrive and 4Matic, especially when configured with their latest front and rear differential upgrades, but I think Audi is well aware that they can't sell their cars just on AWD alone, and the days of an Audi interior being miles ahead in design and materials vs. BMW and Mercedes are also over. Look at the previous gen A8 vs. the previous gen S-class, the Audi kicks the plastic fantastic Benz into the weeds on the interior front. Not anymore. The new A8 is very nice, but then so is the S. Audi must appeal to drivers, and they are doing that with much sportier feeling rear-biased AWD with torque vectoring in the rear and the crown gear thing in the front, the fantastic supercharged V6, and while BMW is focused on adding luxury features, runflats, and "good enough" electric steering, Audi is focused on making their cars *lighter* than the cars they are replacing, and making them better to drive. That to me spells conquest sales from Munich. The R8 was also genius. Conventional wisdom says that halo cars don't work (see Acura NSX, BMW Z8) but the R8 instantly elevated the level of the brand, it introduced the LED lights that the entire industry has now copied, and it got Audi's name mentioned alongside Porsche in the press, over and over. I don't think the Audi of 20 years ago that offered the 2.8 V6 as the top engine offering could've sold the R8, and that's probably one of the reasons why its spiritual predecessor, the Avus Quattro concept, never went anywhere. The Audi that sells V10 and now TT V8 S6s and S8s, and the 572hp RS6 can sell the R8.