What recession? Audi recorded its best-ever global sales in 2010’s first quarter, surpassing Mercedes for the first time in the process.
The German firm sold 264,100 units worldwide between January and March; Mercedes sold 248,500 units. In march they sold 110400 cars worldwide, which is the best monthly result of all time for the Ingolstadt-based company. Audi’s sales success is largely being put down to its performance in China, a market that accounted for almost one if five of all its cars sold globally. In China, Audi outsells Mercedes two to one.

The U.K. remained Audi's third-largest market (behind Germany and China) with a 43% increase in sales to 9,004 vehicles in January.

Audi wants to surpass both BMW and Mercedes by 2015 and become the world’s leading luxury carmaker with annual sales of 1.5 million units. Its sales will be given a further boost later this year with the launch of the A1 supermini.
BMW will release their numbers soon.

“With these sales results, we have even surpassed the comparative figures from our record year in 2008,” commented Peter Schwarzenbauer, Member of the Board of Management for Marketing and Sales at AUDI AG. “We expect continued growth compared to last year in the second quarter of 2010. Some of the credit goes to the new generation of our flagship car, the Audi A8, which we are currently launching.”

Drivers for the good sales growth in the first quarter, according to Schwarzenbauer, included the new Audi A5 Sportback and A5 Cabriolet models. He also emphasized the continued strong sales of the Audi Q5 and of the A4 and A6 models. Biggest growth came from China and Hong Kong, where sales figures in the first quarter were 77.3 percent higher than in 2009.
Audi is spending €7.3 billion to bring eight new models to the public by 2015, with a target to sell 1.5 million new vehicles a year by 2016.

http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArticle/AllCars/248749/

 

Well, they definitely don't outsell Mercedes in Texas...I can't throw a rock without hitting a C class here in San Antonio.

 

BMW announced on Monday that’s its Q1 global sales increased 14 percent to 265,809 units. Although not as sharp as Audi’s 25.9 percent first quarter sales increase, BMW’s total beat Audi’s mark (264,100) by 1,709 units (which isn´t even 1%).

With the A1 hitting the market in May, Audi is aiming to be the world´s largest luxury automaker by Q3 (at the latest) for the 1st time in history.

 

Every other car in Seattle is an Audi.

 

I am in the market for a DD to replace my S500. While the S500 has done well by me, I feel it is time for a change. I have been looking at preowned A8s. They are not as visible here and I really like the look. Does anyone have a comparison of the two cars?