And more importantly, Audi says it will increase planned investment for 2009 in this particular area to 90 percent compared to 70 percent in the previous years. More specifically, the product development budget will total around 1.8 billion euros ($2.29 billion) this year, Autonews wrote.
"That's something we recently changed," Peter Schwarzenbauer, Audi board member for sales and marketing, told Automotive News at the 2009 Geneva Auto Show. "We want to continue to develop our products, and we'd rather scale back other investments before we touch our products."
Audi expects a 10 percent decline in global sales in 2009 so every single cost-saving measure pretty much makes sense when talking about the company's attempts to minimize loses.
"We want to save several hundred million euros," Audi finance chief Axel Strotbek told Reuters last week.
Audi earlier this month announced its results for the fiscal year 2008, unveiling revenues of €34,196 million and profit before tax of €3,177 million. Axel Strotbek, Member of the Board of Management for Finance and Organization at Audi AG, admitted the German group will continue to invest in its operations despite the difficult times the automotive industry is expected to encounter in 2009.
“We will continue in 2009 to invest heavily in new products, future-proof technologies and growth markets,” said Strotbek. “We will counter the negative impacts of shrinking sales caused by the global economic crisis through consistent spending and investment discipline, and continuous process optimization,” explained Strotbek.
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