Audi India website was home to cars like A3, A4, A6, A7, A8 L, Q3, Q5, Q7, Q8, R8 and many performance cars, but now only 3 cars are listed
If you visit the Audi India website, you would probably wonder that it seems to be suffering from a potential glitch amid the nation-wide COVID-19 lockdown. The German automaker’s Indian website only has three models – the A6, A8 L and Q8 – listed. Information regarding the several other models that are on sale in the country are nowhere to be seen. Hat tip to regular automotive enthusiast Ravi Mayaluru for bringing this confusing episode to our notice.
The Corona virus emergency has shuttered all non-essential businesses and forced millions of professionals to work from home. With sales operations on hold across the nation, automotive brands are working tireless to increase their digital footprint during this lockdown in a bid to keep their prospective customers engaged.
Having majority of your products disappear from your official website is not exactly an ideal situation to be in, especially when people have nothing much to do except spend several hours on the internet. But that is not the reason why many cars have from missing from Audi India website. Here is the official press statement by the company.
“As India moved to Bharat Stage VI (BS VI) norms in April 2020; with advanced planning and a focused approach, Audi India sold out all its BS IV stock of cars. With BS VI regulations, we have decided to revamp Audi’s entire product range in India. Therefore, all our upcoming products will either be first time in India or next generation or facelift at the least and we shall be doing this in a phased manner. Stay tuned to our next product announcements for an exciting future with Audi in India.”
For the record, Audi India has a comprehensive product portfolio which includes A3, A4, A6, A7, A8 L, Q3, Q5, Q7, Q8, R8 and several performance oriented models. The premium brand was a clear leader in the Indian market not long ago but now it has been struggling to keep up in the sales department.
For 2019, Audi India sales were at 4,594 units – their lowest annual sales in 9 years. In comparison, rivals Mercedes and BMW registered sales of 13,786 units and 9,000 units respectively for the year 2019.
Before the pandemic brought the world to its knees in 2020, Audi India managed to introduce two execute high-ticket launches – the Q8 flagship SUV in January and new A8 L in February this year. Towards the later part of 2019, Audi India brought in many attractive initiatives to drive sales including slashing the prices of Q5 and Q7 models by up to INR 6 lakh during the festive season.
With BS6 updates set to drive up the diesel vehicle prices significantly, several OEMs were already looking at a challenging year in the country. The COVID-19 situation has come as a further dampener. With an already weak baseline in 2019, it is going to be particularly hard for Audi India to post encouraging sales in 2020.