Audi global car sales down 11% y/y in March

German car maker Audi AG said yesterday that its global sales fell 11 percent in March from a year earlier, with the United States and Western Europe showing the sharpest declines while results elsewhere improved.

Audi, a unit of Volkswagen AG, said it sold 90,400 vehicles in March, compared with 101,251 in March 2008. However, it said there were positive signs for the future.

Thanks in part to the launch of the Q5 car-SUV crossover, "our order intake is now significantly increasing," Peter Schwarzenbauer, a board member responsible for sales and marketing, said in a statement. The firm did not immediately provide figures.

"The trend is positive," he added. "Our monthly results have been continually improving since January, a difficult month for everybody."

In March, sales in the Asia Pacific region rose 5 percent to 15,600 vehicles.