BERLIN: German luxury car brand Audi said yesterday its deliveries rose to a new record last year despite the diesel emissions scandal, although that would likely not be enough to save it from dropping into third place behind luxury rivals Mercedes-Benz and BMW in global sales rankings.
The key contributor to Volkswagen group profit was increased sales of luxury cars and sport-utility vehicles to 1.87 million units from 1.8m in 2015, a spokesman said.
Ingolstadt-based Audi raised deliveries by four per cent in the US where Volkswagen’s emissions test-cheating scandal broke in 2015 and reported 6.4pc more sales in Britain, its No 2 European market, the spokesman said, confirming figures first reported by German daily newspaper Die Welt in its yesterday’s edition.
Audi is due to publish official figures for December tomorrow, same as parent VW.
They are expected to show it has dropped into third place from second in terms of global luxury car brands.
The luxury carmaker may start selling diesel vehicles again in the US after deliveries were banned in the wake of the emissions manipulations, though a decision hasn’t been taken yet, Die Welt quoted sales chief Dietmar Voggenreiter as saying in an interview.
By contrast, VW’s namesake brand plans to drop the technology in the US as it reboots its strategy in the Americas post-dieselgate, brand chief Herbert Diess has said.