Car sales edge higher at Volkswagen

(Sharecast News) - Volkswagen saw deliveries tick higher in the first half of the year, the German car giant confirmed on Wednesday, despite a slide in sales to the US. The Wolfsburg-based group, which also owns Audi, Skoda and Porsche, said it delivered 4.41m vehicles worldwide during the six months to June end, up 1.3% on the previous year.

The main driver was a 18% uplift in sales to South America. In western Europe, deliveries edged 1% higher, and rose 9% in central and eastern Europe.

Those gains helped offset expected weaker performances in China and North America, which reported declines of 2% and 7% respectively.

In China, car makers are battling weak consumer demand alongside stiff domestic competition, while US sales have been rocked by Donald Trump's global trade war.

German car markers currently face a 25% duty on all car and car part imports into the US, weighing heavily on demand.

However, global demand for electric vehicles remained strong, rising 47% to 465,500 quarter. In Europe, Volkswagen's biggest market, they were 89% higher year-on-year.

Marco Schubert, from Volkswagen's extended executive committee for sales, attributed the group's "strong momentum" to the range of newly launched models.

He continued: "This applies especially to all-electric vehicles. One in five of the vehicles we delivered in western Europe is now purely electric. The corresponding orders are also developing dynamically - they increased by more than 60%.

"Overall we were able to slightly increase our global deliveries by the end of June despite challenging conditions."