Buoyed by encouraging response from the northern region, which contributes nearly 50 per cent of its total sales in the country, German auto major Audi plans to foray into tier-II cities like Ludhiana, Jaipur and Lucknow.
At present Audi has dealership in Delhi, Guragon, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Banglore and Mumbai, among others.
“The northern market is very important for us. In the last calendar year (2008), our vehicle sales countrywide grew by 201 per cent to 1,050 cars, compared with 349 units in 2007,” Martin Birkner, head (marketing), Audi India, told Business Standard.
“We sold about 50 per cent of the total vehicles in the northern region alone. Naturally, we are targeting the northern region aggressively and are planning to open dealership in Ludhiana, Jaipur and Lucknow.”
This apart, the car maker plans to expand its dealer network to Kochi, Chennai and Kolkata this year. The company is now looking forward to increase its dealership strength to 15 from 12 at present by the year-end.
Commenting on Audi’s January sales, Birkner said that the company sold 109 cars in January 2009, which is 95 per cent more than the corresponding month last year.
He said the luxury car market is growing in India and the company has high expectation from the market.
“The demand for luxury cars in India is rising and we are preparing to address it by opening more dealerships and a wider service network,” he said.
The official also revealed that the company planned to launch a small SUV ‘Q5’ in the domestic market which is the smaller version of Q7.
He was in the city for the second edition of the Audi Quattro Cup 2009 which began on February 28.
Given the overwhelming response to the inaugural golf tournament last year, this year’s Audi quattro Cup included New Delhi, Pune, Mumbai and Bangalore apart from Chandigarh. This is for the first time the company has added Chandigarh as its centre for tournament.
"The Audi quattro Cup received an excellent response in India making it an obvious decision for us to scale up the tournament by adding three more centres across the country. Audi has been involved with golf sport for almost two decades. Worldwide, the Audi quattro Cup ranks among the biggest and most popular amateur golf tournaments," he said.
The Audi quattro Cup 2009 will feature 500 golf enthusiasts across Chandigarh Golf Club, (February 28th, 2009), Delhi Golf Club (April 6th, 2009), Poona Golf Course (March 2009), Willingdon Golf Club, Mumbai (April 4th, 2009) and Eagleton Golf Resort, Bangalore (April 11th, 2009).
Three top teams from each of these five cities will participate in the Audi India quattro Cup finals to be held in October. The team that wins the Audi India tournament will head to New South Wales Golf Club in Sydney, Australia, for the 19th Audi quattro Cup world finals from December 14th to 18th, 2009.
