Volkswagen is on a quest to dethrone Toyota as the world’s largest automaker by the middle of next decade, but the automaker’s Audi luxury division may slow that goal by a few years. Audi announced on Monday that it has delayed its goal of selling 1.5 million units annually by 2015 by at least one year.
Audi was planning on topping the 1.5 million mark by 2015, but has pushed that target back to 2016 or 2017 on the heels of waning demand. “Whether it will now take one or two years longer doesn’t make much of a difference,” Audi’s Peter Schwarzenbauer told Bloomberg.
Audi sold a record-setting 1 million vehicles last year, but will likely only sell about 900,000 units this year. Audi’s sales dipped 6.1 percent to 82,800 units last month, with five-month sales down 12 percent to 374,750 vehicles.
Audi’s U.S. and European operations, which slipped 11 and 12 percent, respectively, last month, were buoyed by a strong 28 percent sales increase in China.
