Of the Volkswagen-Group seems to be gradually emerging from the severe sales crisis due to the lack of microchips and corona-problems inside China to work out. On Friday, VW reported a drop of 6.3 percent in global deliveries for June compared to the previous year. A total of 802,000 vehicles were sold in the month. In the previous month there were around 140,000 fewer units – with a decrease of 23.5 percent compared to May 2021.
In the most important market, China, business is picking up again after the far-reaching lockdowns. In Europe in particular, however, there is still considerable stress in the procurement of semiconductor-Components that are everywhere in the car. VW expects the situation to gradually stabilize over the course of the second half of the year.
This optimism was also reflected in the VW share
: With a gain of around 3 percent, the VW preference share was one of the biggest winners in the Dax on Friday.
Electric car share of 5.6 percent
From January to June, VW was able to make significant gains in purely electric cars. Deliveries rose by 27 percent year-on-year to 217,100. A little more than half came from the main brand VW passenger cars.
Overall, the Stromer accounted for a sales share of 5.6 percent. The group got rid of most of it in Europe, albeit only with a small plus. This was followed by China, where e-sales more than tripled. the United States have only accounted for 8 percent of all electric cars delivered so far, and half-year sales have also fallen recently. However, VW wants to invest in production there and is also examining possible battery cell factories of its own, as in Europe.
A look at the daughters reveals major differences. While the core brand was hardly able to improve in June (0.7 percent), Seat and Škoda slipped by more than a quarter and light commercial vehicles by almost a third. Audi ended up with a minus of 7.4 percent. Porsche on the other hand sold 12.1 percent more.
Planned comeback in China
In China, VW is increasingly freeing itself from “enormous difficulties” that the outgoing regional manager Stephan Wöllenstein saw there in the first half of the year. Deliveries increased significantly in June – more than 340,000 cars sold meant an increase of 27 percent, in May it was still a decrease of almost 24 percent. In Western Europe, where there are still too few microchips for the car industry, it fell by more than a quarter in the past month.
Wöllenstein said he sees a good chance that China will recover by the end of the year: “It should be possible and within reach to return to a similar level of sales as in 2020 and to double our ID models compared to 2021.” Sales of the electric car series initially fell short of expectations in the world’s largest car market. For example, some customers are said to have requested special, extended software functions.
According to Wöllenstein, a lot is being invested in networking and in preparing for fully automated driving: “We are massively increasing our staff.” Further takeovers of tech companies are also possible. “Cariad is also getting faster.” The software division of the group struggles with delays in the development of unified systems
. In China, Cariad is represented with its own branch.
The new corona measures in the country caused supply chains in numerous industries to break in the spring, and container ships were backed up in front of the port of Shanghai. Plant closures at VW were the result, reported Wöllenstein. In addition, almost a third of the dealers had to close. “It was really a dark period.”
Now there are signs of improvement, said Wöllenstein, who will soon be replaced by the previous VW core brand boss Ralf Brandstätter – who is also responsible for China on the group board. The trend at Audi and Porsche is also good, while Škoda is developing steadily.