German luxury carmakers racked up more eye-popping sales in China in August, tapping into a rich vein of growth as living standards rise in the world's most populous nation.
VW's (VOWG_p.DE) premium brand Audi (NSUG.DE) said on Friday that sales jumped by two-thirds to 22,350 units, bringing the total for the past eight months to nearly 152,800, a year-to-date gain of 63 percent.
This puts China on track to eclipse Germany as Audi's single largest market as domestic new vehicle registrations amounted to 144,365 units through August, according to official data.
Audi is not the only German luxury brand to profit from soaring demand in China but it does controls a much bigger slice of the market than rivals like Mercedes-Benz.
Daimler's luxury car brand said on Friday its sales in China more than doubled last month to 13,400, bringing the year-to-date total to 88,500, up 129 percent.
Mercedes said that its global volume growth showed sales heavily skewed toward lucrative models like the E-Class estate and S-Class flagship executive saloon, which would indicate another strong quarter of profits since these models contribute more heavily to earnings.
"We expect sales to continue to develop favorably in the coming months as well. Worldwide, we want sales at Mercedes-Benz to grow at a double-digit rate in full-year 2010," said Mercedes sales chief Joachim Schmidt in a statement.
Overall, Mercedes-Benz brand global vehicle sales grew by more than 22 percent to 81,000 vehicles.
