Audi to take non-metro route to drive sales

MUMBAI: German luxury carmaker Audi is looking to deepen its network outside the main metro cities in India and launch cleaner petrol and electric vehicles to get back on the growth track after posting four straight years of sales decline. The company has internally formed a plan — Strategy 2025 — as part of which it will launch a new product every quarter next year, Audi India’s new head, Balbir Singh Dhillon, said in his first interaction with the media after assuming office.The new strategy revolves around bringing in new models, widening geographical reach, ensuring profitability in the sales network and switching to sales of only petrol and electric vehicles, something which the group is doing globally. Sales numbers will not be the focus during this period, Dhillon said.“Next year, petrol, plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles will be our focus. We are also bringing in the eTron electric SUV,” Dhillon told ET. The company will also enter tier-2 and tier-3 markets as part of the strategy but with a workshopfirst approach, he said.“We will look at tier-2 and tier-3 markets with a sizeable Audi car population and set up a workshop there. After some time, we will put up a pre-owned car showroom there and when the volumes are justified, we’ll open a showroom,” he said.The new strategy is crucial for the company as it is staring at a sales decline for the fifth consecutive year in 2019. Just six years ago in 2013, Audi was the market leader and the first to sell more than 10,000 luxury cars in India in a year.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/32LM1TI