Luxury Rises From The Ashes: Record Sales For Audi And BMW
Tempora mutantur, or in Boy Dylan’s words, the times they are a-changin’. Last year, luxury cars were pretty much unsalable. This year, they are the hottest commodity. Especially in Germany. Which isn’t doing so well generally. Germany’s car companies on the other hand are working at warp speed. Daimler already had announced their best June ever. What about BMW and Audi? They are doing great. Danke, Euro. Xie xie, China.
- Audi sold 554,950 units worldwide from January through June, that’s 19.1 percent above the same period in 2009. Audi has “set its course for a new record year in 2010,” writes Automobilwoche [sub]. Audi wants to sell more than a million units worldwide this year, and party like it’s 2008.
- Their Bavarian brothers at BMW sold 696,026 globally in the first half of the year, a plus of 13 percent.
Both say that China, and the U.S. are responsible for the luxo-boom. Audi increased its China business by 64.3 percent in the first half year. BMW doubled its sales in China in the first six months of 2010.
It’s a strange world: The Euro is down, China booms, and who profits? German car companies.
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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What is the Hyundai Genesis doing there??!
Audi and BMW volume are driven by the entry-levels (3 and A4s) which are near luxury / 'fake it til you make it' sort of cars. As long as bankers get bonuses and law schools churn out junior rainmakers, this market will be strong...even when stickers hit 40-50k. Yikes
The lower and middle classes are still reeling. When the haves start spending the have nots will slowly find employments and money trickle down to them. It will benefit the restaurants, to car wash which employs all sort of folks in the lower middle class of the society. The worse i really hope is over, quite often when the money are stagnant and nobody have any Chutz Pah to spend, held tightly to their chest that creates a big problem to the whole society. But the real issues of Uncle Sam is never really fixed yet. When u have so much debt and so little vays to make mulla, God help America. Forcing the Middle Kingdom's Yuan to appreciate is to buy a little bit more time, but not a timely fix at all.
This could just be a blip from the wealthy moving as much income as possible into this year from next year - to escape 2011 tax increases. And I suspect that those who would do this probably favor German cars over similar Government Motors models...