Audi: Good start to 2006!

We already reported about Audi's great start to 2006, e.g. in the USA and Canada.
But now it looks like a significant sales increase for Audi in all major markets with a strong growth in China, yes that's possible as you can see, pushing them 27% up as of January sales figures.

Audi sold more than 69,400 vehicles worldwide in January, an increase of 26.7 percent on the same month of last year (January 2005: 54,825).

“We are delighted with this positive start to 2006. This result is an ideal basis for the global launch of the new Audi Q7, beginning on 10 March in Central Europe,” stated Ralph Weyler, Member of the AUDI AG Board of Management for Marketing and Sales. “We will introduce a whole range of attractive new models this year, putting us on course for the eleventh record year in succession.”

Around 51,100 vehicles were handed over to their new owners in Europe (up 17.0 percent, 43,699)*. Of this total, 16,300 were sold in Germany (up 11.2 percent, 14,670). The European markets with the highest growth rates were France with 3,600 (up 30.3 percent, 2,736), Great Britain with 7,800 (up 13.4 percent, 6,905) and Italy with 4,800 vehicles sold (up 20.2 percent, 3,974). Sales in North America rose by 21.5 percent to 6,900 vehicles (5,659). 6,084 of these vehicles were handed over to customers in the USA (up 19.8 percent, 5,077). Business in Asia/Pacific was also highly successful, with 8,600 vehicles sold in this region (up 153.6 percent, 3,380). Of this total, 6,300 were purchased by customers in China (up 238.4 percent, 1,848).

*) Growth and last year’s figures in brackets