"Small cars are safe", says Audi as it commits to retaining A1 and A3 in Australia 

Audi says it’s committed to selling the A1 and A3 in Australia for as long as possible, despite the plummeting popularity of small cars.

While the small-car segment was once one of Australia’s most popular – the Toyota Corolla and Mazda 3 were often the highest selling cars in the country – Aussies have drifted away in droves over the last five years.

Sales have halved since 2017 in the small-car segment, tumbling from 220,000 units a year to record just 109,064 in December 2021.

It’s a similar story in the light-car segment which has fallen from 84,000 sales to 45,000 in the same period.

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The number of models offered in both categories has also shrunk by a considerable margin and rival manufacturer Mercedes-Benz has recently confirmed it will axe the A- and B-Class models from its range in 2025.

Yet Audi says it has no plans to abandon the segments, despite their shrinking popularity.

“Small cars are safe, definitely,” Audi’s GM of marketing Nicholas Reid told Wheels at the launch of the Audi RS3 hot hatch. “They’re [A1 and A3] are both very important segments, for different reasons.”

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Audi introduced a new-generation A3 to the Australian market earlier this year which saw it re-enter the small segment after a short absence due to a shortfall in supply. Currently the A3 is Audi’s third best-seller in 2022 with 632 sales year-to-date.

“The A3 we really missed it while it was gone,” said Reid. “And the sales figures now, the car has been in market since [the first quarter], and it’s starting to fire. So it’s a really important model for us, the A3, and it also gives us access to those great performance variants, the S3 and the RS3.

“And A1 is the entry to our brand so it allows us to have a conversation with a younger customer and a new customer sometimes,” Reid added. “And it allows us to have multiple Audis in the household, which is always a target of ours. We don’t just want one Audi in people’s garage we want two or three and that’s the real benefit of having a model like the A1.”

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Globally Audi has committed to continuing the A3 nameplate for a fifth generation, likely as an all-electric model, but it has fallen short of confirming the A1’s future beyond the current model.

"When it comes to the entry level, the A3 or its successor, that will probably be the entry level,” company CEO Markus Duesmann told media last month. “So yes, I can commit that from the A3 segment, we will be offering a range [of vehicles].”