German luxury car maker Audi plans to double its Middle East sales to at least 20,000 vehicles a year by 2020, helped by investment in showrooms and service centres
"It is the minimum target. You have to have buildings, you have to have capacity," Trevor Hill, managing director of Audi Middle East, said following a presentation on its 2012 sales in Dubai's Burj Al Arab hotel.
"Already those investments have been signed off, most of them have been made already. Half of the battle is already won [in] creating capacity and now we have to work in terms of volume improvement and in terms of quality," he said.
Audi, a Volkswagen AG unit that booked a 16.4 per cent sales jump to a record 9,155 units in the Middle East in 2012, aims to sell at least 10,000 vehicles in the region in 2013.
Audi has seven major construction projects on the way, including showrooms and after-sales service facilities in the UAE, Oman and Qatar.
"The brand needs to double its workshop capacity in the region," Hill added.
Globally Audi plans to boost deliveries to more than two million cars and sport-utility vehicles by 2020, as it aims to snatch leadership of the luxury car market from BMW.
"Dubai is growing quite rapidly so that will create a lot more opportunities for us to sell. There is a lot of wealthy people living in Dubai right now," Hill said.
The UAE made up 41 per cent of Audi's total sales in the region, with 3,819 units sold in 2012, up 21.7 per cent on the previous year.
Saudi Arabia, the Gulf's biggest market for volume rather than premium passenger cars, followed with a 26 per cent jump over the same period.
