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Recently, a car blogger broke the news that an Audi 4S shop launched a promotion campaign of "buying a car and giving it away". Online pictures show that there is a billboard placed above the Audi A8L exhibition car in the exhibition hall of an Audi 4S shop, which reads "Buy a new Audi A8L and get Audi Q2L free". From the shooting angle and the glass door handle on the right side of the picture, or for the 4S shop workers shot, later spread to social media, causing heated discussion.

According to Audi's official website, the current Audi A8L market guidance price is 82.98-195.48 million yuan, while the Audi Q2L official guidance price is 2288 - 268,800 yuan. In other words, if the Audi Q2L is converted into cash directly, it is equivalent to buying the Audi A8L cheaper by about 200,000 yuan. Of course, the official website shows the official guide price, Audi A8L in the terminal market also has a certain discount margin, 2.0T version and 3.0T version discount about 100,000 yuan, the highest 4.0T version discount about 200,000 yuan.

From this point of view, the promotion campaign of "buy the new Audi A8L and get the Audi Q2L free" is relatively cost-effective. As for the cash discount into a gift Audi Q2L, more is marketing gimmick, but this is not a bad thing for Audi, after all, Audi Q2L this model sales are also very general, through this way can also improve the overall sales level. Of course, the rich are only a small part of the population. How many people can afford to buy an Audi A8L and are willing to buy an Audi A8L is another level of concern.

At the end of the market, the Mercedes S Class and BMW 7 Series are much more expensive than the Audi A8L, but even so, sales are still higher than the "sale" Audi A8L. According to the number of risks, Audi A8L accumulated sales of 7090 vehicles from January to August 2022, down 35.9% year-on-year, while the sales volume of old rivals Mercedes-Benz S-Class and BMW 7 Series were 17387 vehicles and 9703 vehicles respectively, with the former down 2.79% year-on-year and the latter down 38.89%.

In fact, the promotion of "buy a car and give it away" is not an example. Earlier years ago, a Volkswagen imported car dealer at the auto show site played "the boss is not, all blind sales, buy Phaeton gift 730,000 yuan Touareg" marketing gimmick, at that time is also caused by the market hot discussion, after all, Phaeton from Audi A8 platform to build, against the standard Mercedes-Benz S class, BMW 7 series and other top luxury cars, due to the high price but low brand recognition, sales at home and abroad market is not considerable, finally can only through this way "promotion".

As a first-tier luxury brand, Audi offers higher discounts in the terminal market than Mercedes-Benz and BMW. Take Audi A4L, BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class as an example, among the three models, Audi A4L generally has a discount of 50,000 - 60,000 yuan in the terminal market, and Mercedes-Benz C-Class has a discount range of about 40,000 yuan, while BMW 3 Series has a relatively small discount range in the terminal market at present due to the recent mid-term change, basically within 20,000 yuan.

In 1988, Audi officially entered China and became the first luxury car brand to enter China. In 1999, Audi launched a lengthened version of Audi A6. The strategy of lengthening was to take into account that most Chinese luxury car consumers sat in the back row, which allowed Audi to own a large group of luxury car consumers in China. For many years after that, Audi maintained its position as a high-end car in China for a long time.

In recent years, Audi has gradually gone downhill. In 2017, Audi was overtaken by Mercedes. In 2019, BMW overtook Mercedes-Benz and Audi to become the first-tier luxury brand in China, with Audi at the bottom of the Big Three. At this point, the "ABB" pattern has completely changed to "BBA".

So far this year, under the influence of factors such as lack of core and epidemic situation, the overall sales volume of BBA is not optimistic, but Audi's decline is more serious. Data show that BMW and Mercedes-Benz sold 378,700 vehicles and 355,800 vehicles in the domestic market in the first half of this year respectively, down 23.3% and 24.1% year-on-year, while Audi sold 317,000 vehicles, down 31.9% year-on-year. Obviously, compared with BMW and Mercedes-Benz, Audi is becoming less and less competitive, facing a more severe competitive situation than BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

In the continuous cold winter of the automobile market, the automobile industry ushered in a moment of change. Compared with the rising sales volume of new energy vehicles and emerging new energy automobile enterprises, fuel vehicles and traditional automobile enterprises have some meaning of "front wave", which is slightly lonely. At present, the traditional luxury car market where BBA is located is also suffering from the impact. Tesla, NIO and other new car-building forces are making high-end efforts with the help of new energy vehicles. Even Geely and BYD, which represent traditional car enterprises close to the people, are also launching an impact on the high-end market with the help of launching new energy models. In such a competitive situation, Audi, which sells at the bottom of the BBA, is even more embarrassing.

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