The German automotive giant Mercedes Benz, Audi and BMW have been busy trying to overtake each other in the Indian luxury car market. Few years back, Mercedes Benz was the synonym for the luxury car in India. Then with the arrival of the BMW it lost its crown. For the last three years BMW was ruling the Indian luxury car market. BMW marketed its cars quite aggressively and the launch of the successful models like X1 and 3 series made it quite popular among the Indian commuters. Audi played silently till recent years and overtook Mercedes in the month of April and threatened to do the same to BMW, which has been ruling the segment for consecutive three years. Now, Audi has managed to overtake BMW for the first time in the Indian sales figures. Audi sales reached the 759 units during June 2012 when compared to the 750 units sold by the BMW. The difference is not quite big but it could make a big difference in the future.
According to the figures from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), Audi sales have shown a huge leap over the past figures. Audi has sold over 1908 units until March as compared to the 1254 units in the same period previous year.
While Audi displayed a 52% rise in the car sales figures in the first quarter of the year, BMW witnessed sale declineby 12.16% from 2088 units as against the 2377 units sold in the first quarter of last year.
Head of Audi India, Michael Perschke had earlier indicated that his company is already looking forward to outrun BMW by 2014. He also added that it’s the Audi effect that the customers are pulled by the strong brand name piled by the tough lineup of the luxury products in India. He said that Audi is not planning to become the market leader in 2012 but rather it will put its emphasis on building gradual momentum with the new products and stronger dealership network to sustain its newly acclaimed leadership for a longer period of time. He also said that the news came as a pleasant surprise but they are targeting the leadership by the start of the next year.
It may also be noted that the part of the Audi’s success story can also be attributed to the excellent response received by the newly launched Q3 crossover.
