Niches customer driven: Audi boss

Audi's strategy of filling every available niche is not the work of out of control product planners, but customer driven, says the company's global head of sales and marketing, Peter Schwarzenbauer.

Down Under for the opening of Audi's new local HQ, the Audi AG board member defended his company's policy of model proliferation. Quizzed whether model growth in the face of widespread rationalisation across the auto industry would be Audi's secret weapon, Schwarzenbauer was steadfast in his assertion the expansion was customer driven.

"It's not because we are a manufacturer [that] we love to go into so many niches -- and our production people certainly don't like this too much because it puts a lot of complexity in the system. But on the other hand we look out in the market and this is what the consumer wants," Schwarzenbauer told the Carsales Network.

"They [customers] -- they don't want to drive around in the same car. They want to be individualised; they want different options in their car; a different view [to body style]; a different touch and feeling.  So if this is the case, we have to deliver this..." he opined.

According to Schwarzenbauer Audi's expanded model offer will be an advantage as the world emerges from financial crisis.

"I think we will be the big winner of this crisis... We decided, despite all that was going on around us, to continue our investment plan into new products.

"We have currently 32 models on a worldwide basis in the market, by 2015 we will have 40 models in the market and we are investing per year 2 billion Euros into new product development until 2015 -- and this is the important part -- out of our own cashflow. We don't have to ask a third party for it. We are the only car manufacturer I know right now which can say this," Schwarzenbauer explained.

The marketing boss singled out the upcoming A1 small car as one of the most important new cars for the brand, but also identified other opportunities.

"We announced we are going to bring the A1. If you look between the A1 and A3 there is still a hole. Between the A6 and A8 there is some room where we could envisage something. So there are still some areas where we see potential..."

According to Schwarzenbauer each of these new entrants could have multiple bodystyles, a la Audi's A5 -- which, with the latest Sportback now has cabrio, coupe and five-door versions.

"You mentioned the A5 and the [body style] possibilities of the A5. I think we have shown there's a lot of potential and creativity amongst our engineers... I think you can expect some variations of A2 and A7 in the future without going into more detail," Schwarzenbauer confirmed.

Though upbeat, the sales boss says the financial crisis has set Audi back. In particular he states that the company is unlikely to meet its goal of 1.5 million global sales ahead of its original 2015 target.

"Ahead of time would now be a little too bullish," he says.

"[But] we were the only car company in January, in the worst time of the crisis, in where we set ourselves clear [public] targets for 2009.

"Back in Jan we said we expect the worldwide market to be down 15-20 per cent and we as Audi are going to be down 10 per cent compared to our record year 2008. If you look at the current situation Jan-July, the worldwide market is down 18 per cent --pretty much in the range which we [fore]saw in January, [while] we are down 8 per cent.

"We are performing much, much better than the market and gaining market share against our competitors and we still stick to our goal," Schwarzenbauer stated.

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