Audi eyes to regain top billing before 2022

German luxury carmaker Audi, which has been witnessing a steep plunge in sales here during the past two years and being pushed to a distant No 3 last year from No 1, expects to claw back to the top slot latest by 2022 and earliest by 2020.

Audi was the No 1 luxury carmaker in the country between 2012 and 2014. But in 2015, its German rival Mercedes yanked away the top slot and continues to remain so. In the meanwhile, another German player BMW clawed back to occupy the second slot, pushing Audi to a distant third position.

Audi, which has stopped reporting its annual sales numbers since 2015 when it had sold 11,192 units, has not yet shared the same for 2016 and 2017, but according to industry sources in 2016 its volume plunged over 30 per cent over 2015 when it lost the top billing to Mercedes. In 2014, Audi had sold 10,851 units against Merc's 10,201 units and was the market leader.

"We hope to return to top billing by 2020 at the earliest or by 2022 latest. We've the right strategy in place and have finalised our product pipeline. But the 10 per cent additional cess proposed last week will be a big challenge for the industry.

"I fear a double-digit dip in our volume if this really implemented. Had it not been so we would have grown in double-digits," Rahil Ansari, head of Audi India told

(This article has not been edited by Zeebiz editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)