The downward trend is accelerating – Audi sales collapse by almost a fifth

Audi delivered almost a fifth fewer cars to its customers in the third quarter. In total there were 314,905 vehicles from the core brand, as the Ingolstadt-based company announced. This means a decrease of 19.7 percent compared to the same period last year. This accelerates the downward trend. In the second quarter the decline was around eight percent.

Calculated over the first nine months of the year, Audi currently has 1.04 million deliveries. That is 11.4 percent less than a year ago. After all, Audi is slightly in the black in Germany and Europe for the first nine months.

The VW subsidiary, like all German manufacturers, is suffering from tough competition and the weakening market in China. In addition, the US tariffs hit the car manufacturer particularly hard because – unlike BMW, for example – it does not have its own production in the USA. In the first nine months of the year, Audi sold almost a quarter fewer cars in China and around a sixth fewer cars in the USA. According to Audi, the decline is currently being exacerbated by model changes in the two volume models A1 and Q2.

How clear the downward trend that has been going on at Audi for several years can also be seen when you compare it with older figures. In the third quarter of 2023, Audi delivered almost 480,000 cars from its core brand. Around half more than now.

Sales of electric cars also fell. Just 143,748 of these vehicles have been sold worldwide since the beginning of the year, twelve percent less than in the previous year. However, a mixed picture emerges here. While electric car sales in the USA collapsed by almost 90 percent and in Europe outside of Germany there was a decrease of 12.5 percent, almost two-fifths more electric cars were sold in Germany. ‌In China it was even 84.7 ‌percent ‌more on a lower basis.