Good interview w a Smart Guy in a suit - but everybody's got game at this level and knows how to spin it.
Trends and sales certainly hi-lite the fact that Audi's on the way up, BMW has become almost too diversified with niche-ness and Merc is in Keogh's words, "the old guy at the bar trying to buy everybody drinks." But Merc and BMW are nimble enough and smart enough to learn from their mistakes as well as capitalize on their strengths.

I do question his attitude (which I'm sure mimics the corporate line) about having not enough manufacturing capacity to meet sales demand...particularly in the U.S. It may seem like clever chat to tout the fact that dealers can't deep stock product- but the savvy consumer can find another car (brand) elsewhere immed. Equally as important is reducing the turnaround time for customer priority orders to show up for delivery in under 60 days.

There's room for improvement.

i think everything he is saying is true and relevant for the US market. Being an Audi salesperson for nearly 9 years now, i can say we are in a time of higher sales with what seems like lower volume. The thing is we are selling cars at a much faster rate than we did in the past, it seems like we don't have any cars, but the turn rate is so quick now and has been, that the inventory is going much quicker.
When i tell a potential Audi owner "don't hesitate" it isn't a sales tactic, its the truth. Too many times people think the car they are looking at will be here in 2 weeks, and sells in the next 2 days. We have 10 A4's in stock when we normally had close to 50. But somehow we are setting extremely high sales for our dealership with minimal inventory.
and the positive equity at the end of leases: completely true. Just this week i have seen $1300, 6200, and 4700 in equity on an A4, Q5, and A5 lease for 3 different customers.
It is a tough, but a great position to be in.

Point taken. I didn't mean to suggest Keogh is misrepresenting Audi's U.S. sales. What I tried to hint at- apparently not too well, is that Audi should consider increasing production for the U.S. market rather than loosing potential customers- especially new ones, because there simply isn't enough stock on hand.

If Audi could increase production, they would. Its the suppliers that can't always increase their production. With such high unemployment in a lot of European countries, many of which are where the suppliers are located, it is hard to just say "build me 100,000 more of these chips, or wood trim, or wheels"

Originally Posted by brookside

Point taken. I didn't mean to suggest Keogh is misrepresenting Audi's U.S. sales. What I tried to hint at- apparently not too well, is that Audi should consider increasing production for the U.S. market rather than loosing potential customers- especially new ones, because there simply isn't enough stock on hand.

Two things. First, running high demand does mean you potentially lose customers and that is a real and present downside. de Nysschen told me that they could have done well more of what they sold last year (record year) had they had the inventory. The up side is that they're not needing to discount so it makes the business much more profitable. How BMW makes money on the 3 and 5 series leases they put out there is beyond me. My guess is that they don't.

Next, de Nysschen told me at the NY Auto Show that you'll see two levels of sales this year. You'll see what they have now, which is record territory but moderately so. Then, when we get into the back half of the year it's going to go nuts because there's a bit of a perfect storm brewing. The Euro zone is weak and that inventory can be redistributed to the USA where there is demand for it. Second, a TON of new product will be hitting including facelifts for Q5, A4, S4, A5, S5 and market introduction of RS 5, S8, A8 3.0 TFSI and A6 2.0 TFSI.

We expected detailer content of interview. Car fans all over the world always care of Audi cars.

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