FRANKFURT (Dow Jones)--Audi AG (NSU.XE) said Monday that global sales soared about 39% year-on-year in January to 77,800 cars amid strong demand in China, outpacing the world's second best-selling luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz.
"Due to the current order registrations, we expect a strong first quarter in 2010," Audi sales chief Peter Schwarzenbauer said in a statement, adding that the premium brand and key earnings contributor of Volkswagen AG (VOW.XE) is "on target to reach the record we set in 2008 of one million cars sold, which we want to achieve again in 2010."
Audi said its new Q5 sports-utility vehicle is currently driving sales, along with the A5 Sportback.
On Friday, Daimler AG (DAI) posted a 24% global sales rise for its core Mercedes-Benz marque in January to 67,000 cars and predicted "significant growth" for the first quarter as well, fueled by the full availability of its key E-Class models. Sales of Daimler's Mercedes-Benz Cars Division, which includes the Smart brand, rose 17% on the year to 72,600 vehicles in January.
Demand for luxury cars collapsed toward the end of 2008 in many major markets amid the economic downturn and the market woes spilled over into 2009, causing relatively low comparative figures for last year.
In January, Audi sold more cars in China than on its home turf in Germany. Audi's China sales more than doubled to 16,798 cars compared with 7,816 in the same month last year while it sold 11,657 cars in Germany last month, up 9.3% year-on-year.
The U.K. remained Audi's third-largest market with a 43% increase in sales to 9,004 vehicles in January.
BMW AG (BMW.XE), the world's best-selling luxury car maker, is expected to release January sales data Tuesday.
BMW's core brand sales fell 11.1% to 1.07 million last year, though the Munich-based company remained the best-selling luxury auto maker ahead of Mercedes-Benz and Audi with 1.01 million and 949,700 car sales, respectively.
Audi's strong presence in the dynamic Chinese market and a smaller exposure to the troubled U.S. market than its rivals helped the company to narrow the gap to its German peers amid the steep market downturn last year.
Audi's sales in 2010 are expected to be fueled by the launch of its small A1 model, a compact car below the A3 hatchback. The A1 is poised to be in the spotlight next month at the Geneva auto show.
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