Audi bounces back with record sales

It got pasted in the sales race by Mercedes-Benz last year and had a slow start to 2018, but Audi has finally found sales form.

It broke out of its 2017 slump with the biggest first quarter in its history, shifting 563,800 cars and SUVs around the world.

Well, “around the world” if that world is centred on China. The Middle Kingdom accounted for almost precisely a third of Audi’s first-quarter sales, swallowing 154,270 cars and SUVs to jump 41.9 per cent over 2017’s Q1 total.

It also grew 9.7 per cent in the US, crossing the 50,000 barrier for the first time since Dieselgate, to 50,042.

In Australia, the brand ran into the buzz saw that is the Mercedes-Benz C-Class – and that’s before the Daimler mainstay’s upgrades kick in. While its first-quarter sales grew 0.1 per cent to 5250, Benz’s continued to boom along at more than 9000.

Its single-month March growth looked better, with a 23 per cent rise to 1860 cars, but Benz nearly doubled that with 3340 sales (though that was down 5.4 per cent on its incredible 2017 sales).

The other major premium player, BMW, was relatively stable at 2229 vehicles for March and 6349 for the first quarter, relegating Audi to third in both categories.

“The record-breaking start to the year provides us with important momentum. With the Audi A7, A6, A1 and Q3 models, we will be renewing around a quarter of our sales in Europe alone throughout the year,” Audi’s board member for sale and marketing, Bram Schot, said.

In China, the sales boom was, surprisingly, driven by the mature A4 sedan and wagon, which leapt 86.4 per cent in March and an astonishing 99.2 per cent for the first quarter. The A4 grew 15.3 per cent globally, with 87,850 sales in Q1.

That didn’t translate to Australia, though, where the mid-size premium car only found 334 homes in the first quarter to drop 40 per cent on its 2017 Q1 volumes. That trails the C-Class by a huge margin, with the Stuttgart sedan registering 1597 sales in the quarter (though it dropped 25.6 percent over last year).

Even with the Chinese boom, Audi’s global sales grew at 9.8 per cent over the first quarter from 2017, dragged down by a slumping Europe.

With its image hit hard by Dieselgate, its sales fell 17.4 per cent in France (to 12,768), 6.9 per cent (to 77,218) in Germany, 6.9 per cent in Spain and 4.3 perc ent in Italy. Its second-largest European market, the UK, grew at just 0.1 per cent to 47,934 cars.