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Tuesday August 21, 8:51 PMEmerging markets fuel Volkswagen unit sales growthFRANKFURT, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Volkswagen increased group vehicle sales by 10.2 percent to 522,000 units in July, a record for that month, the world's fourth largest carmaker said on Tuesday, as emerging markets continued to power growth."We are well on the way this year to selling more than 6 million cars for the first time," Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn said in a statement. Thanks to the strong growth last month, group vehicle sales year-to-date rose by 8.1 percent to 3.61 million units. Assuming the group maintains its current average rate of gains, it could even end up with nearly 6.2 million cars and trucks sold. Volkswagen reported deliveries to customers in January to July jumped by more than 20 percent in emerging markets like east and central Europe, South America and Asia/Pacific. This dynamic rise in sales more than compensated for sluggish growth rates of 2.1 percent in North America and just 1.4 percent in its core Western European market. All brands including Commercial Vehicles contributed to the solid performance, with only its loss-making Spanish SEAT cars suffering a decline in demand, which amounted to 2.0 percent year-to-date. Shares of Volkswagen were up 2.4 percent at 151.05 euros by 1245 GMT, after hitting an all-time high of 151.59 euros earlier in the session. Volkswagen said late last month that booming vehicle sales and savings from its restructuring programme completed last year will allow the company to reach its pretax profit goal of 5.1 billion euros ($6.9 billion) in 2007, a year earlier than expected. |
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