audi sales plans: 1m cars

[David Eaton]

note the comments about the number of new models planned...

dave
'01 s8
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FRANKFURT -- The luxury Audi unit of Europe's biggest
carmaker Volkswagen said on Wednesday it planned to increase
annual production to around one million vehicles in the
medium to long term. 

A spokesman for the company declined to comment on specific
figures to appear in a report Germany's Capital magazine.
According to the magazine, Audi plans to lift production to
close to 1.1 million vehicles by 2008, a roughly 42 percent
rise from current levels, boosted by 12 new models. 

"We do have plans for growth which run to about one million
units, but there is no set time frame," said an Audi
spokesman. 

Audi, which accounted for about one third of VW profits in
2002, sold 767,000 vehicles last year and has forecast
record sales for 2004, helped by the new A3 hatchback and an
updated A6. 

Audi has already said it plans to more than double sales in
the United States by about 2007-2008. Audi's mother company
VW is under pressure amid signs that its new Golf car, on
which investors were pinning hopes for recovery after a
profit slump in 2003, is succumbing to pricing pressure and
slow sales.