Monday, July 13, 2009
Audi breaks through market gloom
Audi has offered a chink of light to the crisis hit global motor industry after announcing that sales increased last month for the first time this year.
Higher demand in China and Germany, where Audi's A3 profited from a state-sponsored scrapping incentive, spurred a 1.3 per cent year-on-year rise in global sales to 91,200 cars.
Peter Schwarzenbauer, Audi's head of sales, said the fall in demand had bottomed out. He said: "Since April we see that sales are stabilising. The trough of the crisis is reached."
The comments come in the wake of decisions by both BMW and Daimler to increase production at some of their plants.
However, Mr Schwarzenbauer, said he expected to see only 'slight growth' in the next few years. And, he warned, it would take another two or three years for Audi to return to its 2008 sales record of one million cars.
DATED: 13.07.09
FEED: AW
