Although it is still the oldest luxury car market in the country, Audi does not want to see the distance between Mercedes-Benz and BMW shrinking. Under the premise of maintaining the domestic sales advantage, the high-end imported car market has become another handicap for Audi.

From January to July this year, Audi sold a total of 166,585 vehicles in the Chinese market, an increase of 29% year-on-year, which is lower than the average growth rate of the luxury car market. In response, Zhang Xiaojun, executive deputy general manager of FAW-Volkswagen Audi Sales Division, said that this year's production line adjustment made Audi more passive, but this situation has changed since June.

In addition, high-end luxury cars and imported cars are still part of Audi's shortcomings. This year, rivals such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz have achieved good results in these two market segments. The gap with Audi is also shrinking. Audi's deep-seated crisis began to make frequent moves in these two market segments and counterattack.

Looking forward to the three points of the world on August 18, Audi brand grade flagship model extended version A8W12 listed. Previously, since the launch of the Audi A8L in March of this year, monthly sales have remained at over 1,000 units, with sales of nearly 6,000 units in five months, an increase of 170% compared with the previous generation.

Even though the A8L has achieved such sales, Zhang Xiaojun still sees insufficient. He believes that "for historical reasons, BMW and Mercedes-Benz have introduced more competitions than our competitors and models have been abundant, so we say there is a gap in this respect."

As Zhang Xiaojun said, in the first half of this year, Mercedes-Benz S-Class models and the BMW 7-Series models had monthly sales of more than 2,000 vehicles. At present, the Audi A8L has a share of about 12% in the D-class market. In Zhang Xiaojun's view, with the introduction of the A8LW12, Audi is expected to change the market structure of the D-class car, from the two win-win to three-point world.

As Audi's flagship model in the premium luxury car market, Bo Shi, general manager of FAW-Volkswagen Audi Sales Division, believes that the W12 model's sales ratio in the A8L model will reach more than 10%, and Audi values ​​the high-end luxury car segment. The goal is to make China the biggest market for the Audi A8L.

Relevant analysis believes that the Chinese luxury car market will rise against the market this year, mainly due to the high contribution rate of the compact luxury car market. As the high-end luxury car D-class car market, the growth is relatively stable, so at this stage is unlikely to emerge as a hot trend like the compact luxury car.

Thus, it is not easy for Audi to expect market share growth in this market segment. Compared to Audi A4L, Q5 and other models in its market segment with more than 40% market share, Audi has encountered more difficulties in the premium luxury car market.

For this market segment, she believes that the outlook for the premium car market is optimistic. This is determined by the direction of the Chinese economy.

Brand marketing is more important than sales. This year, Audi has been active in the imported car market. Prior to the launch of the A8LW12, Audi had already released the 2012 models of the A3 Sportback and Q7 imported cars; at the same time, Audi invested heavily in building the R8 Spyder sports car in China.

"Obviously, Audi is eager to increase its influence in the imported car market," analysts said. In the domestic luxury car market, a sole Audi brand "reverse power", to make up for its shortcomings in imported cars, has achieved initial success since 2010.

According to Zhang Xiaojun, the number of Audi cars imported last year was 31,000, an increase of 109% year-on-year from 14,000 in 2009. In the first seven months of this year, Audi's sales of imported cars have exceeded the number of the previous year; in the fourth quarter of this year, With the launch of the Audi A1 and the Audi A7 Sportback, Audi's imported cars are expected to continue over 100% of market growth last year.

Although Audi's efforts to strengthen the imported car market are obvious, Audi insiders told reporters that for imported cars, the role and purpose of brand promotion is far more important than sales. Zhang Xiaojun also stated that “If an imported vehicle performs well in the Chinese market, Audi will definitely localize it, which is beyond doubt.”

At the same time, among all models sold by Audi in China, the share of imported cars has also increased from 13% last year to 18% in July this year. As the sales growth of imported vehicles is much higher than that of domestic cars, Zhang Xiaojun predicts that Audi’s share of imported vehicle sales this year is expected to exceed 20%.

Regarding the proportion of imported cars in Audi sales, he said, “This proportion will increase in the future. However, due to our market strategy, the proportion of domestic cars will still be relatively large.”

"Audio will bring the whole series of products to China by 2015." Zhang Xiaojun told reporters.