Audi's sales volume doubled year after year to counter the "eccentricism"

After the production bottleneck that has plagued production for many years has been temporarily eased, Audi has started to “race back” opponents' catch-ups at an extraordinary rate of expansion. This counterattack has been followed by FAW-Volkswagen Audi’s domestic cars from the past few weeks. The "new car battle" to imported cars can be seen.

On Thursday, the new Audi A8LW12 officially announced its landing in the Chinese market in Qingdao. As the "crown" on Audi's new top flagship model, the debut of the Audi A8L W12 undoubtedly adds a new fire to the new Audi A8L in the domestic market, and this is the basis for Audi to prove its brand power is not inferior to its opponent.

Audi has never been faster than it is today. In the past two weeks, Audi has already released the 2012 models of the A3 Sportback and Q7 imported cars. It has also invested heavily in the landmark commercial center of the Beijing World Trade Plaza, which is an Audi R8 Spyder super convertible sports car. Landed on the Chinese market to help out.

Zhang Xiaojun, executive deputy general manager of FAW-Volkswagen Audi Sales Division, told reporters that as Audi A1 and Audi A7 Sportback will both be launched in the fourth quarter, the two models will open up a new segment for the Audi brand. Therefore, Audi's imported cars this year are expected to continue the rapid growth of more than 100% last year.

The A8L's stand-up, with the acceleration of Audi's imported car strategy, has entered the top 10-year flagship model of the Audi A8L in China, and it has begun to get better.

"In March this model came to China and sold more than 1,000 vehicles every month. It sold nearly 6,000 vehicles in five months, an increase of 170% compared to the previous generation." Talking about the new A8L in recent months Market performance, Zhang Xiaojun was overjoyed. "Because of historical reasons, the two rivals introduced much earlier than us and the models are also abundant, so we say there is a gap in this respect."

Unlike rivals Mercedes-Benz and BMW, which first adopted the strategy of selling imported cars to seize the Chinese market, Audi first occupied the Chinese market through the domestic A6. This historical reason also makes Audi's imported car territory long-term competitors. The flagship model A8L, which represents the high-end image of the brand, also has a very different sales performance from the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and the BMW 7 Series.

Although A8L’s monthly sales in China have leapt to 1,000 units for several months in a row, Audi’s performance in comparison with its competitors, the BMW 7 Series and the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, is irrelevant, with Audi’s performance in top-grade flagship models. There is still a lot of room for growth. The Audi A8L W12, which entered the market last week, added further weight to Audi’s further market penetration in this market segment.

Looking through the history of the three German high-end car brands, it is not difficult to find that Mercedes-Benz launched the top flagship S-class for nearly 60 years, and the BMW 7-series has 34 years, compared with the Audi A8's “young”. Since its birth, there have been only 23 years of history. Therefore, from the perspective of historical accumulation and brand influence, the Audi A8L, which is a “late-comer,” still lags behind the two major rivals.

However, according to Zhang Xiaojun, executive deputy general manager of FAW-VW Audi Sales Division, the two major competitors unified the pattern of domestic imports of high-end D-Class cars (Mercedes S, BMW 7 Series and Audi A8L are located in the market segment), are Gradually rewritten as "three points in the world." Because this new Audi A8L has landed in China in March this year, this Audi flagship model has begun to sweep away the haze of the past.

"I and the Stones are convinced that the Audi A8L should have a better market performance. This is where we need to continue our efforts." Zhang Xiaojun said that "effort", in addition to doing a good job of domestic sales, also includes the British Golmstadt (Audi's headquarters in Germany) wants more product resources. "The German side has done its best in the face of tight global resources."

The skyrocketing imported car reporter learned that the Audi A8L brand is not the only hot-selling vehicle in the Audi Audi system. In fact, due to Audi's strategic thinking of “importing domestically and importing lightly”, Audi's imported cars have been far behind the direct competitors such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW. However, in the last two years, the number of imported Audi vehicles has shown a significant increase in geometric levels.

Zhang Xiaojun cited a set of figures to illustrate that Audi has made swift and aggressive growth in the past two years: Audi's imported cars were 31,000 in 2010, an increase of 109% from 14,000 in 2009; and before this year, In the past seven months, Audi's sales of imported vehicles have already exceeded the number of last year, and this year it is still expected to continue market growth of more than 100% last year.

Of all Audi models sold in China, the share of imported cars has also increased from 13% in 2010 to 18% at the end of July 2011. As the sales volume of imported cars is much higher than that of domestic cars, Zhang Xiaojun expects that Audi will import the products during the year. The share of car sales is expected to reach one-fifth. "Our promise is that by 2015, Audi will bring the entire range of products to China."

In response to the challenges posed by Mercedes-Benz and BMW, Audi, which nearly "monopolized" the domestic premium car market in the past 20 years, had to start "two-line operations" to further consolidate its leading edge. On the one hand, Audi needs to further increase its localization efforts and incorporate more popular products into the domestic system. On the other hand, Audi has to import a large number of products to enrich the brand image and meet the individual needs of the market.

To this end, on the one hand, Audi threw out an ambitious plan to build 700,000 units of production capacity in 2015, and included more entry-level premium cars such as the Audi A3 and Q3 into domestic plans. On the other hand, Audi also passed Ingolstadt. Special coordination, for China to win more imported car resources. Zhang Xiaojun explained to reporters that Q7's global supply was tight, but sales in China had broken through 10,000 in the first 7 months, an increase of over 70%.

“The status quo of Audi's imported vehicles is small, but its growth rate is very fast.” Zhang Xiaojun admits that among domestically produced models, A6L, A4L and Q5 all occupy more than 40% of their respective market segments and are in an absolute leading position. In contrast, Audi's short board in the imported car field is very prominent. “As Audi has been on the upswing in recent years, Audi's global resources are tight.”

At the same time, the reporter learned that the expansion of Audi dealers has also begun to accelerate. Shao Shi, general manager of FAW-Volkswagen Audi Sales Division, told reporters that Audi's number of distributors in China will soar from 170 at the beginning of the year to around 240 by the end of the year, and the number of new dealers will increase by 70 within one year. More than 40%.