German luxury carmaker Audi India will see a degrowth in 2024 owing to supply constraints. The company witnessed a disruption in supply between January to June this year.

“The supply chain constraints happened in the first half of the year. Components come from different locations across the world and there could be a disruption in any location also with disruption in shipment of vehicles. The situation has improved and we are witnessing normal supply. Going ahead, we are optimistic that there will be no supply constraint and we will come back to the numbers that we plan to achieve. This year, in terms of numbers we will see a degrowth,” said Balbir Singh Dhillon, Head of Audi India. 

Rise in car prices?

With the increase in the cost of shipment, the company is evaluating increasing the prices of its vehicles in the country. 

“There have been changes in the shipment of materials and cars. Earlier the cost of shipment was one of the tiny little pieces of the pricing which is not the case anymore. The cost of shipment has gone up significantly. We are working on whether to increase the vehicle prices and will decide next week,” he said. 

The company’s electric vehicle penetration is upto 3 per cent and is evaluating local assembly of electric vehicles. 

“Globally, Q6 e-tron and A6 e-tron have been revealed. We are in the position that multiple products are being launched and we are evaluating which vehicles to bring into India to assemble here. We require a minimum threshold to invest and assemble them locally. Our penetration right now is up to 3 per cent because we have cars above ₹1 crore. The scaling for us will happen only when we make the electric vehicles in India, otherwise, the cars continue to be imported and expensive,”Balbir added.  

Demand for pre-owned luxury cars

Audi India has seen a demand uptick in pre-owned luxury vehicles. It witnessed a 29 per cent growth year-on-year for the Audi Approved Plus. 

“By 2025, we plan to have 30 Audi Approved Plus showrooms. In 2020, we had only 7 outlets and now we have 26 outlets. It is a business which is as big as the new car business,” added Balbir. 

Meanwhile, Audi India launched its new Q7 in India in Mumbai at an introductory price of ₹88,66,000. The Q7 constitutes 10 per cent of overall sales for the brand in India. 

Related Topics