Audi has acquired Ducati Motor Holdings for a sum of $ 1.1 billion. The Volkswagen owned automaker has paid close to seven times the revenue of Ducati last year, making this deal quite an expensive one for the German automaker. This is not the first time Volkswagen tried to acquire Ducati, in 2008 the peoples car maker bid for Ducati but lost to Investindustrial (the current owners). The acquisition for Audi won’t show immediate gains as the Italian motorcycle brand won’t be giving profits to Audi in the near future, nor will it provide them with innovative engineering.
This brings us to the obvious question. Why did Audi acquire Ducati? For starters, the deal says Audi acquired Ducati but the fact is that the acquisition is done by Volkswagen through their Audi arm. Volkswagen owns a host of companies which it has acquired over the years and turned them profitable. The company aims to do the same with Ducati. Ducati will benefit from Volkswagen’s financial stability, wide spread network and high engineering fortress. The German automaker can expand the Ducati brand by developing more products which Investindustrial couldn’t do due to the lack of funds required for investments in R&D.
For the motorcycle enthusiast this only comes as good news. Soon Ducati motorcycles could be retailed through Audi dealerships, giving more touch points to the customer. While Audi could also setup an individual dealership network just to cater to the Ducati brand. Knowing Volkswagen, they love platform sharing and cost effective engineering, so we can also expect cheaper Ducati motorcycles in the future. Could Audi also bring out downsized Ducatis? Just like they have been doing with the Q branded SUVs!
