The upswing in the Chinese car market after the Corona dip has Volkswagen-Group brought higher sales figures worldwide at the beginning of the year. In January, 698,200 cars and commercial vehicles were delivered to customers, 13 percent more than a year earlier, as the Wolfsburg-based car manufacturer announced on Friday.
The increase is based solely on China, where VW alone sold 290,900 vehicles at the beginning of the year, an increase of 43 percent. But the comparison is doubly distorted. At the beginning of 2023, China was still suffering from the Corona restrictions, and the Chinese New Year fell at the end of January, while in 2024 it will be celebrated in February. In Western Europe, sales fell by 3 percent and in North America by one percent.
“The Chinese market is still characterized by high discounts, especially from domestic suppliers, by economic stimulus programs in some regions and by growth in the lower price segment, in which Volkswagen is not active,” the company explained. Against this background, VW has shown its strength there. In particular, the business with purely electric cars has picked up more strongly than the competition. VW sold 17,700 electric models in China, 7,600 of which were ID.3s alone.
The Volkswagen brand recorded the largest increase worldwide at 18.0 percent to 382,900 vehicles, Audi increased by 13.2 percent, Porsche came to an increase of 6.9 percent.