A3 sedan as popular as hatch

Audi Australia says its inaugural A3 sedan range is now selling in numbers nearing those of its five-door sibling – and expects its warmer S3 models to do the same.

Speaking at the launch of the S3 sedan this week, Audi Australia product planner Matthew Dale said the numbers are indicative of a shift in focus for prestige buyers, and proves that a wider model mix will attract new buyers to the brand.

“We [initially] thought that maybe because the Sportback was a more established name in our market there’d be a bias towards it, but at the moment it’s close to 50:50,” said Dale.

“Customers are coming out of mass-market models [because] it suits a different buyer – it’s someone that wants the silhouette of a sedan; and some customers see the sedan as a bit more grown-up as well – we’ve never had that in the A-segment before.”

It’s an anomaly seldom seen in Australia's mainstream small-car market, in which hatchbacks account for up to 65 per cent of sales overall, leading Skoda to overlook the sedan and launch only a five-door version of its new Rapid.

Even Toyota says its Corolla hatch and sedan variants are split by a factor of 70:30.

Elsewhere in the prestige small-car market, Mercedes-Benz's direct competitors for the A3 are heavily skewed towards hatchbacks, with the same-sized A-Class (hatch) and more expensive CLA-Class (sedan) split by a ratio of 77:23 per cent in favour of the five-door.

Audi says the trend towards smaller prestige models Down Under is livening up, and the numbers support its claim.

So far this year Audi has sold 1253 A3 variants (including 221 S3 Sportback models) while Mercedes-Benz has sold 1770 A-Class models and 514 CLA-Class variants.

During the same period, BMW has sold 761 BMW 1 Series and 225 of its new 2 Series variants, while Lexus sold 296 Lexus CT200h models.

“What we want to do is provide something that customers want to buy,” said Audi Australia spokesman, Shaun Cleary.

“We know that the trend is, generally, that people are moving down to a smaller size (vehicle). It’s up to us to make sure that we’re offering a model that meets the customer’s needs, and if that happens to be the A3 sedan we’re delighted that we have that model [to offer],” he concluded.