After the slump in the Corona crisis, car sales come into the United States back on the road – German manufacturers also benefit greatly from this. Volkswagen According to information from Thursday, 120,520 new cars with the VW logo were sold in the important US market in the second quarter. That was 72 percent more than in the pandemic-related weak period of the previous year, when factories and car dealerships had to be temporarily closed due to lockdowns.
VW now spoke of the best sales result in a quarter since 1973. At the beginning of the 1970s, the German brand still had a market share of around 5 percent in the US new car business, before disappearing into the niche until the 1990s. Since then, there have been repeated attempts at comeback that resulted in setbacks – most recently the diesel scandal from 2015 and the Corona sales crisis.
In the case of the more expensive urban SUVs, the German industry giant was even able to more than double deliveries. SUV sales now account for almost three quarters of all VW cars sold in the United States. For some years now, the manufacturer has been focusing on heavier and larger models, which are particularly popular with US customers.
The VW subsidiary Audi increased its US sales even more in the three months to the end of June. The premium provider sold 66,995 cars in this period, 92 percent more than a year ago. Especially with the SUVs of the Q series, Audi was able to make up ground again after the stress of the Corona crisis. The sports car manufacturer, which is also part of the VW Group Porsche delivered 18,958 cars, an increase of 55.5 percent compared to the previous year another record.
BMW is also booming, Toyota overtakes GM
Also BMW benefited greatly from the recovery in the US auto market. According to its own information, the Munich-based company sold 96,561 new cars under its own brand in the second quarter, an increase of almost 90 percent compared to the same period of the previous year. The subsidiary Mini grew by almost 77 percent and delivered 9,340 of its small cars to US customers. BMW’s German luxury class competitor Daimler will not publish the sales figures for Mercedes-Benz USA until later this month.
The US market leader was significantly less successful than the German manufacturers General Motors (GM). With 688,236 cars delivered, the group fell short of analysts’ expectations, despite a year-on-year increase in sales of 40 percent. With production problems due to a shortage of computer chips, GM struggled to meet the high demand. The Japanese rival Toyota increased quarterly sales by 76 percent to 688,813 cars and even outperformed the largest US manufacturer slightly.
GM expects that the shortage of computer chips will continue to slow business. The US economy is picking up speed and demand is likely to remain high into the coming year, but the chip shortage is likely to continue to lead to complications in the supply chain and burden the supply, said GM chief economist Elaine Buckberg. The second largest US manufacturer ford, which plans to present its figures on Friday, recently had similar difficulties as GM.