Without a thorough investigation of corruption, it will be difficult for FAW Audi to regain its strength

Nowadays, in the mainstream luxury car market in China, Audi is among them. But there is no doubt that compared with Mercedes-Benz and BMW, Audi can only be willing to be a "little brother".

Judging from the market performance of the above three German luxury car brands in recent years, Mercedes-Benz and BMW have been changing championships, while Audi has been very stable and has always been at the bottom.

However, fortunately, judging from the sales data in 2023, although Audi's sales are still at the bottom, Audi is much higher than Mercedes-Benz and BMW in terms of year-on-year growth, reaching 14.6%. For Audi, it is not easy to have such a high year-on-year growth rate when it is besieged by a number of new domestic car-making forces in 2023.

However, it should be said here that compared with Mercedes-Benz and BMW, Audi is currently the only luxury car brand in China with two joint venture car companies. But objectively speaking, the current sales of Audi still rely on FAW Audi, and SAIC Audi is almost negligible.

It is likely that in 2024, the growth of Audi's domestic sales will still need to be carried by FAW Audi.

But what people didn't expect was that just entering 2024, a big event happened to FAW Audi. According to media reports, just recently, Ye Huaming, director of the operation center of China FAW Audi Sales Co., Ltd., is currently under investigation on suspicion of serious violations of discipline and law.

According to public information, Ye Huaming joined FAW-Volkswagen in 2007 and can be regarded as an old man in the FAW-Volkswagen system. At FAW-Volkswagen, Ye Huaming successively served as product manager, used car director, East China marketing director and sales and marketing director. Until 2020, he was transferred to the Northeast General Manager of the Sales Division of Audi of FAW. In 2023, Ye Huaming's job will be transferred again and he will become the director of FAW Audi's NEV operation center, and he will be investigated after less than a year in office.

If you know FAW Audi, you will know that this once domestic luxury car sales champion, in the past 10 years, has been investigated by a number of executives, including the former FAW-Volkswagen Audi Division Executive Deputy General Manager Zhang Xiaojun, former Deputy General Manager Xiao Min, former Deputy General Manager Zhou Chun and former Public Relations Director Lu Agile and others.

It is undeniable that there seems to be a gap between Audi's brand influence and Mercedes-Benz and BMW around the world, but in the domestic market 10 years ago, Audi's influence was actually much higher than that of Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

Among them, the most fundamental factor is that the image of Audi's official car has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. This advantage is incomparable to Mercedes-Benz and BMW. So before 2019, the domestic luxury car sales champion has always been Audi.

Until 2019, Audi's sales were directly overtaken by BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Although there were frequent changes in Audi's top management during this period, Audi has not been able to regain the top spot in sales.

Even second place is a luxury for Audi.

Li Fenggang, the current executive vice president of FAW Audi Sales Co., Ltd., took office on October 8, 2023. Like Ye Huaming, Li Fenggang once served as the general manager of the northeast region of FAW Audi's sales division.

To sum up, in the car quick review, Audi's current predicament is not lost in the brand and model, the real problem appears in people. If FAW Audi is not able to thoroughly investigate corruption, it will be almost impossible to revive the glory of the past.

Copyright Notice:This article is the original of Che Kuaiping, please contact for authorization to reprint, it is strictly forbidden to reprint without permission, and the graphics and text are not allowed to be plagiarized and misappropriated in any form, otherwise legal responsibility will be pursued. Part of the article is from the Internet, the copyright belongs to the original author, if you use your work, please contact us for remuneration or deletion.