There has been alot of talk of the potential for Audi to surpass BMW is total car sales by 2010. The big question is: does this benchmark really matter?
I would argue no - the bottom line for any business is profitability. Just look at the Big Three in the U.S. for example. Ford and GM may sell more cars than BMW or Audi, but their profits are not measuring up to this yardstick.
Based on BMW's financials realeased today and Audi's yesterday, take a look at this:
BMW: H1 2006 pre tax profit 2.5bn EUR
Audi: H1 2006 pre tax profit 661 mln EUR
BMW's numbers tower over Audi's. I'm not sure if Audi's numbers include the other luxury brnads in the VW umbrella -probably not. However, the bottom line is that the number of cars sold doesn't mean much as it may not ensure that your business remains a going concern. The bottom line: the bottom line matters most.
Audi will have to grow sales at multiples of BMW in order to catch up where it matters most. It seems that BMW's independance has not inhibited it's success from a sales, branding, marketing and most important of all - from a profitability standpoint.
Audi will be "following" for a good deal fo time to come.