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The Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand finished 2016 with full-year vehicle deliveries 2.8 percent up on the figure for 2015. 5.99 million vehicles were delivered to customers worldwide, some 164,000 more than in 2015. Deliveries grew by 16.4 percent in December, when a total of 567,900 vehicles were handed over to customers.
Volkswagen Brand Board Member for Sales, Jürgen Stackmann, said: “The Volkswagen brand ended 2016 on a successful note. Almost 6 million customers chose our brand – and remained loyal to us in challenging times. These encouraging results at the close of 2016 give us confidence for 2017 – a year in which there will be several important product premieres in all regions.”
The main trends in December include the good performance in Europe, the USA and – after some difficult months – also in South America .
On the home market in Germany, there was another noticeable decrease in December compared with the previous year, with deliveries down 14.3 percent to 38,800 units, chiefly as the result of a systemic decline due to an extension in the leasing term for employees. Referred to the full year, the performance on the German market declined by 7.2 percent.
Some of the major markets in Western Europe put up a good performance compared with the previous year; France: +35.8 percent, Netherlands: +29.1 percent, Italy: +29.5 percent. This was mainly due to strong demand for the Polo and Tiguan models.
Over 37,200 vehicles were delivered in the USA, a substantial increase of 20.3 percent compared with the previous year. This was in part due to the newly-launched Golf Alltrack and the facelift Passat. These models lifted demand compared with December 2015.
Deliveries in Brazil ran at 21,400 units, an increase of 2.9 percent compared with the previous year. This was attributable to full resumption of production along with successful marketing measures.- China, Volkswagen’s largest sales market, was once again the key driver of the positive trend, with 303,100 vehicles (+28.7 percent) handed over to customers there. The Middle Kingdom broke the record not only for December deliveries but also for full-year deliveries.
Mexico maintained the good sales performance of previous months, with deliveries in December 9.3 percent higher than the previous year.
