Audi India’s new managing director Rahil Ansari today took the covers off Audi’s facelift of their A3 sedan and said that Audi is going to grow their network rapidly in 2017, the tenth year of formal operations for the German brand in India. To highlight the event, Audi India brought the famous first ‘Audi’ that most Indians know, Ravi Shastri’s Audi 100 which he won as ‘Man of the Series’ in the 1985 World Series of cricket championship. The former Indian cricketer also came to the event and said he remains an Audi loyalist owning an Audi Q7 and TT.
Speaking to the press, Ansari who has been a part of Audi India in the past before this new role highlighted that Audi has 94 ‘touchpoints’ in India currently and plans to expand their reach to over 100 customer touchpoints soon. “We will also become more aggressive with our mobile showroom in order to reach more smaller cities and towns.” He expected the Indian growth story to continue and believed that the new A3 as well as other models such as the next-generation A5 and Q5 due later this year could take Audi back to a position of market leadership.
“There are 64,000 Audi’s on Indian roads right now, and that number should grow very quickly. I expect our new models to attract new customers to our brand. With cars like the A3 we hope to attract customers who should stay with the brand for life”, Ansari said. This is the reason, he explained that Audi India has kept an aggressive price-point for the A3 with a starting price of Rs 30.3 lakh for the petrol variant, much cheaper than the entry-level variant of the Mercedes ClA, the only direct competitor of the car.