Audi overtakes rivals in luxury car sales

Audi has consecutively sustained the lead in luxury car sales, edging out BMW AG’s namesake brand and fast growing Mercedes Benz in April and May 2015 respectively according to news emanating from the German car maker.

The first five months of the year in terms of sales increased 11.7% from last year to 73,353 vehicles while last month, 2015 sales rose 11.0% to 18, 428 vehicles, representing the second-best month since the brand was launched in the United States market 45 years ago.

The brand has similarly achieved significant sales growth in Nigeria with more than 400 units sold since the beginning of the year, Anurag Shah, Audi Centre head of sales and marketing said. He attributed the growing popularity of the brand to ingenuity and some intriguing Audi models that were recently launched.

Meanwhile the best Audi sale ever in the United States market was in December 2014 with 19,238 cars and SUVs. One of the key drivers of Audi sales gains in the US was the significant increase in demand for the A3 and S3 models that form the base of the Audi product line-up.

Audi said May 2015 was best month on record for the A3 and S3 sedan models with 3,035 cars sold, as well as for the A3 Cabriolet with 458 cars sold. Combined, the 3,493 A3 and S3 sales trailed only the 4,280 sales of the popular Audi Q5 and SQ5 crossovers in the Audi results. Reacting to the development, Scott Keogh, president, Audi of America said, “A year after launching the new A3 models, we are seeing payoff from our bold decision to re-imagine a key component of the Audi line-up and take advantage of a luxury car segment poised to take off.”

He said: “The record sales for the A3 and S3 sedans, along with the A3 Cabriolet, show this was a risk well worth taking. And we aren’t done yet with the all-new A3 Sportback e-tron coming this fall as the fisrt plug-in Audi.

Notwithstanding, May represented strong demand for Audi luxury SUVs with a 36.7% increase in sales for the month encompassing the Audi Q3, Q5 and Q7 models. The Q5 posted an 11.6% increase from a year earlier, and the Q7 posted a 25.3% increase from last May. The Audi Q3 wasn’t available in May 2014.

Audi Certified pre-owned vehicle sales also achieved their second-highest total for any month and the best May ever with a 5.8% gain on 4,405 CPO vehicles sold. Audi CPO sales year-to-date increased 8.3%. Audi currently holds the longest running record sales streak in the premium car market according to a competitive sales report from motorintelligence.com.