Currently reading: Audi records 68% leap in profit as Dieselgate effect fades

Then German brand sold just 0.6% more cars last year compared with 2016, but its after-tax income surged to more than £3 billion

Audi has announced a significant leap in operating profit at its annual financial conference, despite sales in 2017 being just 0.6% up on the year before.

Following the announcement that it will build a new Tesla Model S rival called the e-tron GT, the premium car maker confirmed that it sold 1,878,105 Audi vehicles last year, with profit before tax leaping by 57% to €4.7bn (£4.15bn). After-tax profits were up 68.4% to 3.4bn (£3.07bn).

The size of Audi’s business has doubled since 2009, with revenue in 2017 hitting 60bn (£53bn). Although Audi’s headline profit margin for 2017 was 8.4% - in the brand’s target ‘corridor’ of 8-10% - the costs of diesel engine recall in the US and the Takata airbag recall pushed the final figure back down to 7.8%.

Lamborghini, which falls under Audi's control within the VW Group, sold 3815 cars in 2017, up 10.4%. Ducati sales crept up 0.8% to 55,871 units.

Lamborghini huracan performante

The headline figures are especially impressive in light of the fact that some Audi models experienced significant sales declines. The ageing A1 was down more than 16% to 95,725 sales in 2017 and the Audi TT was down 23% to 23,899 sales.

The A3 and Q3 - both set to be replaced this year - were also well down. The A3 fell 13% to 321,934 sales and the Q3 was down 10.5% to 207,774 units.

However, the Audi Q7 saw very strong global sales of 106,004, up 3.9%, and the A5 shifted 106,824 units, up 58%. Audi’s biggest seller in 2017 was the A4 series, with 341,371 sales, up 1.3%.

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Dcs54 17 March 2018

Audi

My Mark 7 Golf has Hill Asist as standard my daughters A3 it’s a £75 extra no wonder Audi’s profits up 

geed 15 March 2018

Vw is now a four letter word

Vw is now a four letter word within the auto community. People are losing thier jobs because of the decline in diesel sales. Such misinformation out there. Not all manufacturers cheated, and none in the blatant and extensive manner of vw, but all manufacturers are paying the price...apart from these dodgy b*ggers. It is right that manufacturers need to be held account and forced to robustly develop their cars. Remember, the government just want your votes, journalists are not experts, and the truth is only found from multi sourced research.
beechie 15 March 2018

MENU Audi records 68% leap in profit as Dieselgate effect fades

There was no effect in real life, was there? The only effect was in the 'green' on-line demi-monde which is inhabited solely by virtue-signalling sheeptards.