Volkswagen Car Sales Dropped Only 0.7% In First Half Of 2016

Despite Volkswagen’s continuous struggle with the cheating emissions scandal, sales of its Passenger Cars brand have only witnessed a minor drop in the first six months of 2016.

With 2,925,000 units delivered to customers across the globe, the manufacturer was roughly 20,000 units short of matching the prior year, when 2,945,700 vehicles found new homes, representing a 0.7 percent drop.

The Asia-Pacific region remains VW’s largest market worldwide accounting for 1,484,300 deliveries from January to June, this year, up 5.5 percent, out of which 1,392,300 were sold in China, a 7.3 percent increase.

Across Europe, 891,300 vehicles were sold during this time, meaning 100 more over the previous period, while in Western Europe, where sales dropped by 0.8 percent to 784,200 units, Germany accounted for 294,800. In Central and Eastern Europe, 107,100 examples sold, up 6.2 percent, while Russians bought 33,600, down 8.1 percent.

The brand’s largest sales dive comes from South America, where 27.6 percent less cars were sold in the first six months of the year, dropping the number from 247,900 to 179,400, and in North America, 5.6 percent less cars managed to find new homes. In the USA, 149,000 examples were delivered, down 14.6 percent from the previous 174,400.

While VW Passenger Car sales recorded a 0.7 percent decrease, the company’s Commercial Vehicles unit recorded a significant growth of 7.0 percent in the first six months of the year, totaling 238,800 vans, transporters and pickup trucks, out of which the most successful was the T model, with 100,300 units delivered, up 12.9 percent. In its home market of Germany, 61,600 vehicles were sold, up 5.6 percent, in Eastern Europe 16,700 units were delivered and in North America, sales increased by 22.5 percent to 3,500 examples.