German Car Forum

Yannis · 10-10-2005, 09:10 AM

VW brand vehicle sales rise 3.5 pct in September.

Volkswagen the world's fourth-largest carmaker, increased deliveries of VW brand vehicles to customers by 3.5 percent in September to 290,000 units worldwide, the company said on Sunday.

"The figures prove that our model offensive in Europe is increasingly convincing customers," VW brand sales chief Georg Flandorfer said in a statement.

Deliveries in its key domestic German market increased 8.7 percent to 50,500 vehicles last month.

"Almost one in every five new car buyers decided in favour of a Volkswagen in September," Flandorfer said, adding that the brand benefited from its youngest-ever product range with the Golf Plus, Fox, Passat and Jetta models.

In China, VW's largest foreign market, the brand suffered a drop in deliveries of 7.5 percent to 46,500 vehicles last month as carmakers waged a fierce price war.

Volkswagen, once overwhelmingly dominant in China but now struggling to hold onto its shrinking lead, said it remained the industry leader in that country.

In the first nine months of the year, VW brand deliveries worldwide declined by 0.7 percent to 2.26 million vehicles.

Excluding the drop in China, however, Volkswagen said vehicle deliveries in the period rose 2.1 percent, boosted in part by a 6.9 percent rise in Germany, the brand's biggest overall market with 394,000 units delivered.

In September, the group sold 98,500 VWs in European markets outside of Germany, a gain of 8.6 percent.

Combined deliveries in South America and South Africa, key emerging markets for VW, grew by 8.7 percent to 43,000 vehicles.

"In the USA, we succeeded in reversing the (negative) trend with the new Jetta and Passat models," Flandorfer said, referring to the brand's two most important volume models.

VW said earlier this month that VW brand sales in the United States rose 3.7 percent, boosted by a surge in demand for its Jetta and Passat sedans.

Source: http://today.reuters.com/business/ne...D=nL09 595866