Weak Chinese Demand Drags on Volkswagen’s July Car Sales Figures

German automotive giant Volkswagen Group saw vehicle sales continue to slow in July after a backlog of orders boosted deliveries at the beginning of the year.

The company announced on Friday that the VW Group’s brands delivered 773,000 vehicles in July, which was 6.6% more than in a very weak July 2022 but a noticeable drop-off from earlier in 2023.

Over the first six months, VW Group brands delivered 12.8% more vehicles than during the same period in 2022 as the company worked to catch up on a backlog of orders from the previous year.

The VW Group on Friday said it was able to increase sales significantly in Western Europe, where 274,500 vehicles were delivered, 21.4% more than a year ago.

In the important Chinese market, however, sales for VW Group brands continued to decline. The VW Group in particular is heavily invested in China and sales to Chinese customers have been an important part of the company’s overall results.

The VW Group sold 260,400 vehicles in China during July, which is 10.2% fewer cars than in July 2022.

Of the VW Group’s brands, luxury carmaker Audi (up 14.7%), Czech carmaker Škoda (up 17.4%) and Spanish subsidiaries SEAT and Cupra (up 45.7%) in particular posted gains in total vehicles delivered.

The core brand Volkswagen itself, on the other hand, saw deliveries drop off by 0.9%.

High-end sports car brand Porsche also reported surprisingly weak figures: After a significant increase in the first half of the year, deliveries for Porsche in July fell by 7.2%.