Audi H1 sales expansion beats BMW, Mercedes on U.S.

Volkswagen AG's Audi luxury brand beat first-half sales gains at Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz Cars as the automaker's A3 compact and A5 mid-size model attracted U.S. buyers.

Audi's global deliveries of cars and sport-utility vehicles jumped 19 percent in the period from a year earlier, the Ingolstadt, Germany-based manufacturer said today. BMW, the world's biggest luxury-car maker, reported a 13 percent increase, while second-ranked Mercedes-Benz, including the Smart city-car brand, posted a 12 percent gain.

The VW division, which sold 554,950 vehicles in the half, aims to dethrone BMW as the top luxury-car manufacturer by 2015, part of the Wolfsburg, Germany-based parent company's target of overtaking Toyota Motor Corp. as the world's biggest automaker within eight years. The Mercedes-Benz brand remained ahead of Audi with 556,700 deliveries, a gap of 0.3 percent.

"The U.S. market is very robust indeed, and the market is reviving faster than we thought," said Hans-Peter Wodniok, an analyst at Fairesearch GmbH & Co. in Bad Soden, Germany. "Luxury makers are benefiting from a revival of the company-car and car-leasing segment, and Audi seems to be somewhat at the forefront of that development."

First-half U.S. sales at Audi rose 28 percent to 48,440 vehicles, with June deliveries increasing 14 percent, the company said. Demand for the A3 and A5 in the country more than doubled, according to figures Audi released on July 1. Global sales were also helped by a 57 percent increase in Asian and Pacific countries, including a 64 percent jump in China, and by gains of 22 percent in the U.K. and 17 percent in Spain.