http://carscoop.blogspot.com/2012/04/audi-records-best-quarter-and-monthly.html
Audi becomes a bigger part of the car market every year. Previously, Mercedes and BMW were holding the best sales among German car makers but know Audi chose a great policy how to get more customers. They offer free extended warranties and their maintenance is lower than Lexus and Mercedes have. BMW, however, has a great sales because of free maintenance. Every person dreams of having a car and paying for gas and insurance only. Audi project managers think that it is too pricey for them to have free maintenance and free extended warranties for free, because their extended warranty is 6 years for new cars and 4 years for people who buy pre owned cars.
At the same time, in Europe, Audi has a loss in sales. In general, in Europe people have less desire to buy new cars today, but BMW and Mercedes are not experiencing loss in sales. It can be explained with different policies that Audi has in different countries. Audi forecasts to sell more cars next year and to be the best-selling German car in the USA by 2020. From my point of view, it is a bit early to give such promises, because Audi launched a lot of new cars in last 1-2 years. As everyone knows, people like everything that is new, so Audi had a growth in sales also because of new models that people are willing to buy.
And of course Audi can give different numbers to mass media, just to show how good they are. From my personal experience, I can see a lot of Audi’s on the road nowadays, but I can not say that there are more Audi’s than BMW or Mercedes. By saying, that Audi have great sales, some people who want to buy a new car, might think that Audi is better than its competitors and buy it.
Audi’s SUV, for example, are more expensive than Mercedes Benz and BMW one’s. BMW and Mercedes have their own factories in the US (BMW in South Carolina and Mercedes in Alabama). Audi expects to built a factory in Mexico (VW, that is the same concern as Audi, have a factory in Mexico already), so this can reduce the price of Audi’s SUVs. And by building this factory and reducing the price for SUVs, they can grab part of the market from Mercedes and BMW.
Generally speaking, Audi have a great plan to become the best selling German car in the USA, but who knows, what BMW and Mercedes will offer in the nearest future..
While Audi does have a sleek new look, and I was not aware of there free extended warranty, I am not sold on the car yet. I don’t hear much on how Audi holds up compared to BMW or Mercedes when it comes to reliability and I do find the car to be a little high priced. Be that as it may this is all speculations of mine, and feel that if Audi does want to make a push in the American market a plant in Mexico might just be the way to go. One thing that I would like to know more about is how are they implementing there plans, with further detail into possible new cars technological advances or sales techniques.
I’m curious why you say that Audi has “a great plan to become the best selling German car in the USA.” Is it because of their warranty? But you said that BMW offers free maintenance, so who needs a warranty when service is free? Or did you mean that combined with their plans to build a plant in Mexico and reduce costs? That would make some sense, except you said that Audi has been experiencing sales drops in Europe, where they already have plants. Also, I’m not sure I agree with your statement that “people like everything that is new”.
free maintenance and warranty are different things. warranty covers damages that are caused by bad making of the car and maintenance is oil, brake change and things like this.
Audi does have a nice look and a history of good quality of cars. Their prices are a little high, but I think it is because they want to be comparable with BMW and Mercedes. The free warranty worries me though because it might send a wrong message of knowing that those cars will break down. I do have many friends who own Audi and they are not complaining about them. Hopefully Audi will keep up the good work.