Audi has enjoyed the strongest first quarter in its history: With worldwide deliveries reaching around 369,500 units for January through to March, the company improved on the prior-year quarter by 6.8 per cent.
In this period, the automotive manufacturer achieved growth in all of its three main sales regions – Europe, Asia and North America. Unit sales in March played a major role in this respect. Audi handed over around 147,700 cars to customers – 3.0 per cent more than one year earlier. This made the past month the strongest March ever for the Ingolstadt-based manufacturer.
The A1 Sportback, the A4 family and the SUV models in particular provided a further boost in the first quarter of 2013. Worldwide sales of the compact SUV Q3 gained 58.2 per cent year on year, climbing to around 28,550 units, while the Q5 grew by 15.6 per cent to some 56,350 units.
These models also strengthened the Ingolstadt carmaker’s business in the European market. Despite the challenging economic environment, Audi achieved a slight increase in deliveries in Europe compared with the first quarter of 2012. Around 187,600 cars (+0.7%) were handed over to their new owners.
In Germany, the sales total for the month of March (24,701 units) was slightly down by 1.7 per cent on the previous year. Over the first three months of the year,Audi reported 59,116 cars sold on its home market, representing a growth rate of 2.0 percent. The most important model remained the A4 Avant. 11,077 customers were handed the keys to their new midsize car between January and March.
In Audi’s biggest sales market, in China, the four rings exceeded the threshold of 100,000 units after only three months for the first time in the brand’s 25 years in that market. In the first quarter, 102,810 cars were handed over to Audi customers, a gain of 14.2 percent. In March, the rise was at 10.7 percent to 34,864 units.
