Audi reports best first quarter ever - 264,100 cars sold

Despite a rocky economic environment for automakers, Audi can proudly announce their best first quarter ever. With around 264,100 cars sold, Q1 2010 marked strong sales gains for the A5, Q5 and A4. In addition to best quarter ever, March 2010 marked the company's best month ever as well. China has recorded the greatest growth with a 77.3% increase over the same period of 2009, with all regions boasting double digit growth rates averaging a 25.9% global rise. Vorsprung Durch Technik!

Press Release:

AUDI AG: Best first quarter with around 264,100 cars sold

- About 26 percent growth compared to last year
- Double-digit growth rates in all regions
- March the strongest month ever with around 110,400 cars
- Big gains for Audi A5, Q5 and A4

AUDI AG has recorded its strongest first quarter ever with about 264,100 cars delivered worldwide so far this year. The brand with the four rings recorded double-digit growth figures in all sales regions – Europe, North and South America, Asia-Pacific, and Africa including the Middle East region. Audi sold some 110,400 cars worldwide in March alone – the best monthly result of all time for the Ingolstadt-based company.

“With these sales results, we have even surpassed the comparative figures from our record year in 2008,” commented Peter Schwarzenbauer, Member of the Board of Management for Marketing and Sales at AUDI AG. “We expect continued growth compared to last year in the second quarter of 2010. Some of the credit goes to the new generation of our flagship car, the Audi A8, which we are currently launching.”

Drivers for the good sales growth in the first quarter, according to Schwarzenbauer, included the new Audi A5 Sportback and A5 Cabriolet models. He also emphasized the continued strong sales of the Audi Q5 and of the A4 and A6 models.

In Europe sales in the first quarter increased by 12 percent to around 162,500 units. The growth trend continued in Western Europe: from January to March, Audi achieved a sales increase of around 12 percent, with some 154,550 cars sold. Sales figures rose in Eastern Europe as well, increasing again by 10.7 percent from January to March.

In the United States, Audi sold 21,315 units in the first three months of this year, 34.8 percent more than in the first quarter of 2009. Thanks to growth of 62 percent in Canada (3,230 cars), Audi sales grew by 35.4 percent in North America as a whole. In South America, Audi sold 70.5 percent more cars than in the first quarter of 2009, with around 3,000 units sold, primarily thanks to increasing sales in Argentina and Brazil.

The strong growth in China (including Hong Kong) continued: Sales figures in the first quarter were 77.3 percent higher than in the first three months of 2009. Audi achieved 70.0 percent growth throughout the entire Asia-Pacific region, with some 64,450 customers taking delivery of their new cars.

Sales figures also rose in the remaining region that includes Africa and the Middle East: with around 8,400 cars sold, sales volume was 40.2 percent higher than in the previous year. The biggest single market was South Africa, where the brand with the four rings sold 3,286 cars between January and March (up 36.0 percent).

Source: Audi