Audi's year-to-date sales increase in China - Russia

German automobile manufacturer Audi has reported that its automobile sales in China increased to 60,509 units between January 2008 and June 2008.
The deliveries of the Audi A6L, produced in Changchun, China, climbed 18% to 42,969 units and sales of Audi A4 increased 20% to 10,819 units from January 2008 to June 2008.

The growth figures for imported vehicles doubled, with sales of the Audi A8 increasing 50% to 2,431 units, while sales of the Audi Q7 rose to 2,663 units, up 90% as compared to the first half-year of 2007.

Rupert Stadler, chairman of the board of management of Audi, said: "We are extremely satisfied with the positive development in our second home market and will continue to enlarge our production capacity."

Deliveries increased to about 90,000 cars and sport-utility vehicles last month from 88,846 a year ago, Ingolstadt, Germany- based Audi said today in a statement. Six-month sales gained 1.4 percent to more than 516,000 vehicles, marking a record for the division of Europe's largest carmaker.

Audi is ``already 2 percent ahead'' of a plan to increase sales to more than 1 million vehicles this year from 964,151 in 2007, Chief Executive Officer Rupert Stadler said in the statement. The automaker is introducing an updated version of the A3 compact in July and will begin selling a new version of its best-selling A4 sedan in the U.S. in September after introducing the car in Germany at the end of 2007.

``We'll harvest the fruits of this product offensive in the fourth quarter,'' Peter Schwarzenbauer, Audi's head of sales, said in the statement.

The division, which competes with Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz brand, plans to increase its lineup to 40 models from 26 over the next seven years.

Audi's sales in the Asia-Pacific region last month rose 17 percent to about 13,900 vehicles, with deliveries jumping 20 percent to 10,329 in China, the company's biggest market outside Germany. Eastern European sales rose 23 percent to 4,100 vehicles, as Russian deliveries increased 11 percent to 1,668.