Audi’s has changed its sales strategy by announcing that they will be making the Audi A1 available in markets outside Europe. This was down to an increasing global interest in the entry level Audi, according to Peter Schwarzenbauer Audi’s sales chief.
A website that Audi set up attracted more than 150,000 interested customers, a big change as sales was originally planned for just the European market. “Many of the Asian markets are now showing a trend toward smaller vehicles, For that reason, it’s right to sell the A1 also in those regions.”
Unfortunately for Chinese and American customers, they’ll have to wait. The A1 is said to go on sale in China sometime after 2011, while the US will only receive the car “at the earliest” with the second generation.
In preparation for global sales, Audi will be bumping up production by 20 percent for the A1. Audi also plans to dethrone BMW as the world’s largest luxury car maker by 2015, with a target sales figure of 1.08 million cars and SUVs this year.
Jacob Mathew Alexander has been a motoring nut for as far as he can remember and has recently turned his passion into writing. After spending some time in the same industry in the UK, Jacob's handy work is from a slightly different perspective.
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what’s the point of making movie about a1 at the us?
Wonder which other Asian countries outside of China showed so much interest, Japan? Singapore? India? Malaysia?
Malaysia? Malaysian worried to much of spare part price and secondhand value……it will just attract minor sales from those ‘hey look i’m different’ yuppies with puppies…
long live the Rings ….
Hopefully China won’t hog up the delivery to other smaller countries this time ….
I’m guessing SEA region. Both Jap and Korea have too much love for their local brands. May b part of the deal of VW with Hicom is to make some of these cool babies ^^
From ‘Audi Investors Relations’, May 6th 2010:
‘In other Asian markets such as Japan and South Korea, Audi also increased its sales figures: in the entire Asia-Pacific region by 54.7 percent in April alone; the first four months saw an increase of 65.7 percent.’
http://www.audi.com/com/brand/en/company/investor_relations/news_and_services/financial_news.detail.2010~05~audi_ag__another_record.html
Probably India??..The small car market in India is huge and BMW as well as M.Benz are doing extremely well there while there are plenty of room for Audi to improve..
If they wanna make a success out of its plan to dethrone BMW as the world’s largest luxury car maker by 2015, India is they key market..Even if they managed to dethrone BMW, it isn’t much of a suprise as they have so many models, namely A1, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, Q5, Q7, R8, A6 Allroad and TT but BMW has only got 1,3,5,6,7,X and 5GT.
Audi A4 allroad , Audi A7,
BMW X1 ,X3, X5,X6, Z4 ,
and not forgetting both companies have high performance for some models…
Audi Ses, and RSes
BMW M division…
hmm, from uk site, the price range of this audi a1 is slightly lower than puegeot 308 depending on specs, even the overall length slightly shorter huhuh
should it arrive in our bolehland, this would be another affordable conti options n that would be an audi heheh
The A1 is no match to the 308, the Peugeot is much bigger.
The A1 is a luxury car with the size of a Savvy: Very high quality for a very high price.
It’s simply a competitor to the MINI…
euromobil bolehland should also consider bringing in the audi a3 which is i believe comparable to peugeot 308
well let’s just hope huhuh
Wonder if they will price par on par with mini? Or the pug..
wow cool looking car…too bad imported cars cost so much in M’sia…
its either audi doesnt give a damn anymore on the US market, or it is eyeing more roomy asian market with china and india are booming.
or the third probability is that audi is scared stiff of the super wrecking power of the NTHSA or IIHS or whatever they are called. remember that almost all the recalls are made through the suggestions/recommendations/findings by those bodies.
it is not that i am suggesting audi doing lousy job or it is OK for audi to risk people’s life, but with such stringest allowance in margin of error, it could be forgiven not to enter the US market beginning with this model. for example that toyota sticky paddle thing. its still in conclusive. but toyota name been dumped and people are no longer see toyotas as safe vehicles.
we, malaysians had problems in the previous times with these ‘inconclusively-not-safe-yet-the-name-already-busuk-however-upon-checking-it-is-all-OK’ practice. remember our palm oil and the plastic gloves. plus that export of catfish by vietnam into the US.
again, i am not accusing the US to intentionally wreck anything that is able (possibly) to topple its own brand, but history speaks.
have no idea whether or not audi is not focusing on the US market but one thing for sure is that audi cars have obtained several top ratings for safety in the states and it’s not because they are terrified of those bodies. FYR, http://www.audiworld.com/news/09/2009archive.html
oppsss sorry. please refer to Jun-25 news.
RM 100k?? dream off.. look at Mini..
wonder if they will release the RS version or the S version at the same time?
Yes, Audi shall beat BMW shortly. Now they have bigger chance amid BM pathetically designed new models like X3.
my only hope is Audi could do something more with how every new car of them should look like. Now all of them look like it’s done by mere photocopying from one to another. it’s nothing wrong to have family look, but what Audi had done is getting more and more boring, just look at the new A7…..
Audi can beat BMW alright, but BMW is not waiting there doing nothing as well. the EfficientDynamics idea of BMW has won it quite a number of crowds already.
cantik betul kereta savvy edisi german ni..
the new audi its a wow !