Goodbye, Crisis: Audi Posts Best Q1 Ever

The struggles of 2009 seem to have ended, as more and more carmakers around the world post much stronger sales figures than last year. A few go even further and announce their best performance ever for the first months of 2010. So is the case with German carmaker Audi, who managed to record its best first quarter in history, after it sold 264,100 cars worldwide.

The performance is even more remarkable if we take into account the fact that sales registered double digit growth in Europe, North and South America, Asia-Pacific, and Africa including the Middle East region. Nearly half of the cars sold by Audi this year were purchased in March: 110,400 cars, or the best month in Audi's history.

“With these sales results, we have even surpassed the comparative figures from our record year in 2008,” Peter Schwarzenbauer, Member of the Board of Management for Marketing and Sales at Audi said in a release.

“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.”

The best selling models of the brand were the Audi A5 Sportback and A5 Cabriolet, backed by the continuing growth of the Audi Q5, A4 and A6. The market which drove the Audi performance this year, as well as in March, was obviously China, which posted a 77.3 percent increase over the first quarter of 2009.