Volkswagen AG starts weak in 2015 – SPIEGEL ONLINE

VW sold fewer cars in its core Volkswagen brand. Also in March, sales of Golf, Passat and Co. continued to decline – total already keeps the downward trend in half a year. In March, deliveries decreased compared to the corresponding month of the previous year by 0.9 percent and reached 558,600 vehicles, such as the Group announced on Wednesday.

From January to March, Volkswagen sold a total of 1.48 million pieces 1.3 percent fewer vehicles than a year ago. In South America, deliveries fell by 15 percent in Central and Eastern Europe by almost a quarter. The most important single market China sales stagnated with 678,400 cars. It went better contrast, in Western Europe, where the company outside Germany surrendered 5.5 percent more cars in the first quarter. In its home market VW achieved an increase of 8.3 percent.

The main reasons for the decline are dips in Russia and South America, as well as the once reliable growth Bringer China falters. For the first quarter of the current year, the residue is the value of the first quarter of 2014 years at 1.3 percent. VW cars had shipped 6.12 million last year worldwide vehicles to customers and therefore cracked the first time the six-million-year mark.

Volkswagen is Europe’s largest carmaker, with last cars per year over ten million sold but only the number two behind Toyota worldwide – declared goal of the Group’s management is to overtake the Japanese competitors.

VW has approximately 600,000 employees worldwide, of which almost half in Germany. Under the corporate umbrella Volkswagen gathered twelve brands, including the core brand Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Audi, Porsche and Skoda. The largest single market is China, where Volkswagen has sold well every third vehicle. In the global car market every eighth car comes from the Group. 2014 VW reached nearly 120 plants worldwide sales of about 202.5 billion euros. Deliveries totaled 10.14 million vehicles.