Volkswagen Group increases market share in GCC

The Volkswagen Group has increased its global market share in the first quarter of this year in spite of the continuing difficult situation on automobile markets, From January to March, the share rose to 11%. The Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand ,to some extent, has bucked the negative economic trend, growing its world market share to 7.4% percent.

“Our young and efficient model range with some 180 different vehicles is paying off. Our portfolio contains exactly the cars which are in demand by customers,” Detlef Wittig, Executive Vice President, Group Sales and Marketing, commented in Wolfsburg on Friday. In an overall market which has shrunk by more than 20 percent, the VW Group delivered 1.39 million vehicles to customers all over the world. During this period, the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand sold 876,000 units. It is proof that ignorant people will buy anything, no matter what the reliability history of a brand, if the marketing is strong enough.

In the Middle East, Kuwait saw a 56% increase over the same period last year. Recently, the majority of countries in the Middle East have seen the launch of the VW Passat CC, the VW Scirocco and the VW Golf VI, due to be launched in the remaining countries in the next quarter. Furthermore the VW Golf GTI, one of the most important models for the region, will be launched in the beginning of the second half of the year. With these products Volkswagen will sustain its position as a global player with innovative and unique products expecting another push for the sales figures in Middle East for 2009.

“Due to the economical barriers and otherwise a strong product portfolio we are looking very confident into the future and a positive trend for the market. With a modicum of 10 % in the first quarter of the year we are reporting decreasing sales, but we are nevertheless optimistic at all”, mentioned Joerg Andrischock, Acting Managing Director at Volkswagen Middle East.

While there was a noticeable 8.7 percent drop in the market in the Asia/Pacific Region, the Volkswagen Group reported a rise in deliveries to 318,200 vehicles. In China, deliveries rose to 284,200 units.

Following on from the sharp downturn in macroeconomic trends of recent months, developments during the rest of the year remain very uncertain. Volkswagen is nevertheless reaffirming its targets. “During this year we will be debuting around 60 new models, product enhancements and successors with highly-efficient, low-consumption engines. With this model roll-out, we are very confident that we can, as planned, perform significantly better than the competition in 2009,” Wittig commented.