SHANGHAI -- Audi, the luxury arm of Volkswagen AG, said yesterday it had raised its expectations for sales growth in booming China to more than 60 per cent this year, for a total 60,000 cars.
Audi's sales in the first nine months were up 66 per cent from a year earlier at 45,702 units, thanks to China's accelerating economy, Audi China executive director Andreas Deges said.
But Audi, which dominates the luxury car market in China, was also gearing up for more competition from German rivals Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and DaimlerChrysler AG, he added.
"That shows how dynamic the market is and how the market will be in the next couple of years," Mr. Deges said, after rolling out the A8L in China, a longer version of its A8 big luxury sedan that provides more leg room.
"The luxury market is getting stronger because the country is growing and the incomes are growing."
Audi's China sales include locally made A6 saloons and A4 compacts and imported products such as the TT coupe, Quattro sports sedan and the revamped A8, which is selling for between 1.2 million and 1.5 million yuan ($145,000 and $181,200 U.S.), Mr. Deges said.
This year in China, Audi hopes to move 50,000 A6s and more than 8,000 A4s -- both of which are made by Sino-German FAW-Volkswagen -- and 800 A8s.
Car sales in China surged to 1.25 million in the first eight months, up 72 per cent from a year earlier, and are on track to hit two million for the full year.
Audi, which plans to nearly double its joint venture manufacturing capacity in China to 1.36 million units a year by 2007, has said it aimed to sell 73,000 cars in China by 2005, a relatively easy target, according to Mr. Deges.
"It is a number we are confident to achieve and possibly overachieve. Definitely it will not go below," he said.
Foreign car players are rushing in to build or expand manufacturing plants in China, the fourth-biggest car market after the United States, Japan and Germany, but Mr. Deges said there was room for everyone in the nascent luxury sedan sector.
