Uwe Hagen to drive Audi Australia forward

AUDI Australia has announced the arrival of Uwe Hagen as its new managing director, taking the place of Joerg Hofmann who returned to Germany last month to lead Audi AG’s retail operations in its home market.

Most recently, Mr Hagen, 52, was head of Audi sales for the western German region, a position he held for six years and during which Audi became the number one premium brand in that region.

He was responsible for sales of around 40,000 cars per year for the Audi brand, sold through a 130-strong dealer network.

Before joining Audi in 2004, Mr Hagen had worked for BMW since 1990 in a variety of roles, including head of the BMW Group in Dusseldorf. Prior to that, he worked for Ford of Europe.

Mr Hagen joins Audi Australia at a time of unprecedented growth for the brand, with annual sales having risen from around 3500 units in 2004 to more than 11,000 last year.

Audi has experienced 62 consecutive months of sales growth in Australia, recording another gain last month of more than 50 per cent over February 2009, with 1219 sales.

It is currently 35 per cent ahead of 2009 year-to-date, with more than 2500 sales in the first two months of this year.

Mr Hofmann said in January that Audi was planning to increase sales past the 12,000-sales mark this year on the back of new models, a revamped dealer network and improved economic conditions.

The company’s goal is to reach 15,000 sales by 2015.