Volkswagen Group’s premium brand Audi has started the second half of 2014 with further sales growth: up 9.7% year on year in July to around 144,000 cars.

Sales grew by 5.4% in Europe, 16.2% in Asia-Pacific and 12.1% in North America. Year to date volume was up 11.1% to 1,013,350 cars.

“We successfully managed to continue our global growth strategy in July and for the first time in Audi history exceeded the million mark for cars sold after just seven months,” said sales chief Luca de Meo. “This means that we are in a very good position to achieve well over 1.6m deliveries this year.”