Volkswagen Sales Up In October
Volkswagen posted strong October gains in sales despite the struggles of other competitors in the car industry. The German automaker, which includes other well-known brands like Audi, Lamborghini and Bentley, said that deliveries were up 11 percent on the year, and that all of its volume brands were showing positive trends. Volkswagen’s success has hinged mainly on growth in China and Brazil, but Volkswagen America posted gains as well. They reported that October 2009 sales of 17,037 were a 7.2-percent increase over the October 2008 sales. The jump in sales has been in part because of the large number of clean diesel cars that Volkswagen offers.
Our clean diesel TDI models continue to gain momentum in the market place, and the Golf and Touareg TDIs are welcome editions to our model lineup, Mark Barnes, the chief operating officer of Volkswagen America Inc., said. Barnes also added that consumers are turning towards cars that are ‘affordable, fuel efficient and fun-to-drive.’ Some of Volkswagen’s diesel cars get upwards of 50 mpg, which competes with the hybrid Prius for gas mileage. In that comparison, Volkswagens have considerably more power underneath the hood than the hybrid. VW’s core brand line-up includes the Golf, the third best-selling car in the world, as well as the Jetta, the Passat and the New Beetle. Volkswagen also has other models, including the new CC, as well as an SUV option, the Touareg. The Touareg is now available in a diesel package as well.
Despite their growth, Volkswagen is still wary about the future amidst the global economic declines. ‘Global passenger car markets have not made a sustained recovery yet, so we are anticipating a particularly difficult and challenging year in 2010,’ Detlef Wittig, the Volkswagen sales and marketing official, said. Sales in Brazil and China would indicate otherwise. In China, sales for the Volkswagen group were up 64 percent, while Brazil saw a sales increase of 10 percent. The enormous growth in China has been linked to a more buoyant economy, as well as government incentives. The incentives plan offers a discount on a number of car related expenditures, as well as a huge discount for rural citizens that buy cars with small engines.
While October was kind to car companies, Volkswagen still fared better than most. GM saw an increase in sales of only about 5 percent over October 2008, while Ford saw only about a 3-percent gain. Volkswagen has been able to successfully sell its product in a variety of markets, and is capitalizing on the continued growth of China and other nations on the rise in the world economy. The company will likely continue to see a profit in the coming months.
