Audi Sept sales rise 12% on Germany, China growth

Audi AG, Volkswagen AG's luxury-car brand, said worldwide deliveries jumped 12 percent in September, led by growth in Germany, China and Italy.

Audi sold 95,137 cars and sport-utility vehicles compared with 84,716 a year earlier, the Ingolstadt, Germany-based company said in an e-mailed statement today. Nine-month sales rose 2.9 percent to 762,280 vehicles, boosted by demand for the A4 sedan and A5 sports coupe.

"Our goal for 2008 is to sell 1 million Audi vehicles, and we have rounded the corner at high speed for the home stretch,'' Peter Schwarzenbauer, Audi's head of sales, said in the statement.

Chief Executive Officer Rupert Stadler aims to surpass Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz brand, the world's top luxury carmakers, by 2015. The maker of the TT roadster plans to increase its lineup to 40 models over the next seven years from 25.

Audi's deliveries in Germany, its home market, grew 21 percent in September to 22,182, while Italian sales rose 19 percent to 6,205 cars and SUVs, helping the Europewide figure increase 13 percent to 68,125 vehicles. Chinese deliveries rose 24 percent to 11,169 vehicles.