Audi eyes smaller cities, North-East to spur growth

Sales in Tier-II and III cities are growing at around 30%: Audi India head

Luxury carmaker Audi India on Thursday said it is focusing more on tier II and III locations, including the North-East, to tap the growing appetite of customers for premium vehicles.

"Luxury enthusiasts in smaller cities are the ones who are converting into customers...As they are the ones with big pockets.

"North-Eastern (region in) India is a focus area for us and we are looking forward to welcome new members to the Audi family from the region," Audi India Head Joe King told PTI.

Although the base is smaller, our sales in Tier-II and III cities are growing at around 30%, while it is less than 10% in metros, he added.

"Tier-II and III cities have grown consistently for us and also across the product range. As part of Audi's long-term strategy to fuel growth in India, we are setting up service centres at places where we do not have a showroom but already have a lot of customers," King said.

Last year, tier-II and III cities contributed nearly 20% to Audi's overall sales of 11,192 vehicles, he informed.

Audi India was the first luxury car brand to open a showroom at Guwahati in North-East, besides having outlets in cities like Ranchi and Bhubaneswar in the eastern region apart from the metro city Kolkata.

To fuel it sales across smaller locations, the company is currently taking its Audi Mobile Terminal (AMT) to mainly Tier-II and III cities across the country.

Introduced in last year as a customer-focused initiative, the AMT is a fully functional mobile showroom designed to provide a full Audi experience to customers.

"Creating better accessibility to the brand by increasing geographical penetration is one of the core pillars of our strategy and the AMT is a unique way of bringing the showroom at the customer's doorstep.

We had introduced AMT last year and received a fantastic response," King said.

This year the company will bring the AMT across 20 cities over the next six months, starting from Siliguri, he added.

Audi India aims to attract over 5,000 potential customers across India through AMT this year against more than 1,200 visitors in 2015.

"AMT has fueled our growth in Tier-II and III cities. AMT last year travelled to Jodhpur, Kota, Ambala, Hisar, Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Meerut, Moradabad, Aligarh, Agra and Amritsar," King said.