Loss of Official Car Position – No Big Influence on Brand Image and Value

　　Sohu Auto: How do you expect the future luxury car market amid the micro growth of the entire Chinese car market? Will the luxury car market also incur a micro growth? If so, will this affect the implementation of the “Leader” strategy?

　　Boesch: The car market has different stages. It will grow at an extremely high speed, then slow down to a two-digit growth and further to a one-digit growth, and finally get saturated. Specific to China, I am afraid the first stage has possibly said goodbye to us. Now, the Chinese market stays at the stage of a lower two-digit growth rate, and the growth will possibly further slow down in future.

　　Currently, premium cars constitute less than 10% of the Chinese market. This figure is about 15% in Europe and 25% in Germany. Thus, I still believe the premium car market still embraces a huge potential. Yet, the market is truly slowing down for the time being.

　　When establishing the “Leader” strategy, we already took this market trend into consideration. This is why I stress a pursuit of high-quality growth in future. We can no longer expect an extremely high growth rate in quantity, so the growth of quality will become very important in future.

　　Sohu Auto: As planned, FAW-VW Audi will take more than 10 models to the Chinese market this year. Then, according to the planning, what models will come to China in the second half of this year and next year?

　　Boesch: I am afraid we will have to be more patient about the introduction of models next year. In the second half of this year, we will successively launch some high-performance models and limited editions.

　　Sohu Auto: The “official car” image used to benefit Audi with very good word of mouth and sales, but as far as we know, Audi is now eager to reshape its brand image into a brand for the young. To make this happen, Audi hosted the Audi Video Season in the first half of 2013, and released compact cars like Q3 and A1 for the young. Through these moves, how much time do you think Audi will take to reshape an all-new and young image?

　　Boesch: Actually, we have not made significant adjustments to brand image and value, but we have always stressed Audi is progressive, sophisticated and sporty. However, consumers are getting increasingly diversified, and their pursuits are becoming more and more personalized and diversified as well, so we have released corresponding products to satisfy their demand. At the same time, we must use some new methods to communicate and exchange views with them. Yet, we have actually not made significant adjustments to the core images and values of our brand.