German car maker, Audi, has been making great performance luxury vehicles for decades, and in recent years the company has been giving stiff competition to BMW as the claim to best performance German car maker. Last year, however, Audi broadened its horizon by purchasing Italian high-performance bike maker Ducati for $1 billion. A year after the purchase, Audi is navigating a new strategy to make Ducati a more accessible brand while maintaining its prestige. According to businessweek.com:
“Last year, Audi bought motorcycle giant Ducati for over $1 billion. The company posted record sales in 2012, but global deliveries are down 5 percent. Bloomberg Television’s Matt Miller takes an in-depth look at how Ducati is trying to balance out the sub-par sales of its $70,000 super bikes by unloading a healthy number of more affordable Monster models.”
Of course, whenever dealing with luxury products there is always a special balance to strike: selling a large number of products while maintaining luxury prominence. However, this is something that Audi has been doing for years, so the company should definitely be able to introduce some new products into the Ducati line without sacrificing the brand’s integrity.
Check the video about Audi and Ducati below.
