Audi plans to double capacity at Aurangabad facility

Mumbai, Feb 21 (PTI) German luxury car-maker, Audi, todaysaid it plans to double its capacity by adding a second shiftat its Aurangabad facility early next year to meet increasedmarket demand.

"Our models have more demand in the domestic market. Wehave enough capacity at our plant. We plan to double thecapacity by early 2012," Audi India''s Head, Michael Perschke,told PTI here.

"We will ramp-up capacity from 4,500 units to 9,000 unitsper year. We will start the second shift at our Aurangabadplant to meet market demand," Perschke said.

Presently, the company has a manufacturing facility atAurangabad for assembling its A6, A4 and Q5 models in India.

Audi India imports products like Audi A8, R8 and SUV Q7 fromGermany.

The Aurangabad facility has enough space to increasecapacity. There is no problem to meet demand for the domesticmarket in future, he said.

On this year''s target, Perschke said the company hadachieved an over 50 per cent growth last month and isconfident of maintaining the same this year as well. "Ourproducts have a huge demand," he said.

The auto major sold 3,003 units last year and has set atarget of retailing 4,500 units this year, he said.

Audi India began local production for assembling its carsin India towards the end of 2007. Presently, Audi retails AudiA4, A6, Q5, Q7, Audi TT and the sports car Audi R8 in India.