Friday 8 January 2016

Scandal-hit Volkswagen sees sales fall 2%


German carmaker Volkswagen says its global sales fell two per cent last year as it struggled with a scandal over cars it had rigged to evade diesel emissions tests in the US.

Sales volume dropped to 9.931 million vehicles from 10.14 million the year before.

The scandal became known only in late September, so it could only have affected figures in the last months of the year.

Sales plunged 37 per cent in Russia and 38 per cent in Brazil as those economies slowed, accounting for much of the overall drop.

Weaker sales in China, the source of much of the company's profits, also hurt.

Deliveries rose by 1.2 per cent in the United States for the full year, though they fell slightly in December.

The figures announced on Friday were for all Volkswagen's brands, including SEAT and Skoda as well as luxury makes Audi and Porsche.

The Volkswagen flagship brand saw sales fall a sharper 4.8 per cent.

"Delivering almost 10 million vehicles is an excellent result, particularly in view of the continued challenging market situation in some regions as well as the diesel issue in the final quarter of last year," chief executive Matthias Mueller said in a statement.

In 2014, Volkswagen finished just behind Toyota in the contest for the title of world's largest carmaker by sales, while General Motors was third.

GM and Toyota announce full-year figures later this month.

Volkswagen briefly pulled ahead for the first six months of 2015 but then slipped behind Toyota.

The company originally set a goal of passing Toyota by 2018, but since the scandal broke has said it is placing less emphasis on raw sales numbers.

Mueller says the company is working to change its culture to prevent future wrongdoing.

The company has commissioned an investigation by US law firm Jones Day.

The US Justice Department is suing Volkswagen, saying it equipped 600,000 cars with software that turned off emissions controls when the vehicle was not on the test stand.

Volkswagen says 11 million cars worldwide have the software. It faces billions in potential fines and costs for recalls as well as lost sales.


Source : http://www.skynews.com