When brand meisters are feeling their oats, sometimes you really know it. That’s certainly the case with top executives of Volkswagen AG and their VW and Audi brands, these days. Day after day, week after week, month after month, they’re coming out with one bullish result, pronouncement and plan after another.
You’d hardly know that Europe is about to sink into a financial morass and the U.S. economy can’t get going again, or that even growth in China has slowed down.
The latest exhibit: Audi CEO Rupert Stadler confirmed to Automotive News Europe that Audi wants to double its new-car sales to more than two million units a year by 2020 around the globe. The luxury marque sold 1.1 million vehicles last year, with plans to sell 1.5 million annually by 2014, a year ahead of its initial schedule. BMW was the top-selling premium brand in the world through the first half of this year, with global volume of 690,000 units; Audi’s was 653,000 vehicles.
Audi executives also continue to stoke speculation that the brand soon will soon break ground on its first manufacturing plant in the United States, or maybe a group of projects including an assembly plant, and engine and transmission facilities. It’s the only one of the German Big Three – which also, of course, includes Mercedes-Benz – that doesn’t already have a U.S. manufacturing facility.
Besides Audi’s growing success in the U.S. market specifically, there are two other reasons for the brand to commit to American manufacturing: the drooping dollar, which really hurts Audi’s German-built models in the U.S. market, and the fact that sibling brand Volkswagen of America just opened its new manufacturing plant in Chattanooga, Tenn. There’s plenty of room on the site footprint for an Audi plant as well.
As VW revs up pre-orders for its redesigned 2012 Beetle, Volkswagen AG announced that its global first-half deliveries – including Audi – exceeded four million cars and sports utility vehicles for the first time, powered by demand in all markets. VW-brand sales were up 12% to more than 2.5 million vehicles.
According to VW's release, China sales were a big factor:
The brand delivered 950,100 (816,400; +16.4 percent) vehicles in the Asia-Pacific region from January to June, of which 852,800 (755,500; +12.9 percent) units were handed over to customers in China, the largest single market. Deliveries in North America, where the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand handed over 237,700 (195,200; +21.8 percent) vehicles in the first six months, were also very encouraging.
“Volkswagen continues to stay on the accelerator in all markets and vehicle segments,” VW CEO Martin Winterkorn stated in Berlin.
All of these achievements represent significant steps on the road to VW’s recently oft-declared goal: to become the world’s highest-volume car maker by 2018. When you want to dominate, you take it one year at a time.
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