China Slump Causes VW January Delivery Dip

Work for Torque News, follow on Twitter, Youtube and Facebook.

Submitted by Marc Stern on February 17, 2017 - 11:27PM

Volkswagen worldwide deliveries dipped a bit in January as changes in China's tax code caused sales in VW's biggest market to drop. In addition, sales in Germany were also down as employees receiving enhanced leasing opporunities.

While Volkswagen’s January deliveries showed that the automaker was well on its way to recovering from the full effects of its diesel cheating scandal, sales in the rest of the world tailed away a bit.

Sales in the automaker’s home market were off, as were deliveries in three other key markets China, Asia-Pacific and Brazil. Overall, sales in those three markets were:

  • China – 270,800, down 11.8 percent from 2016
  • Asia-Pacific – 283,100, down 11.6 percent from 2016
  • Brazil -- 16,700, down 14.6 percent from 2016
  • Germany – 38,600, down 5.1 percent from 2016

“The Volkswagen brand started 2017 successfully. Worldwide deliveries may be slightly below the value for the previous year, but, this is solely due to special effects in the major market of China. All the other reported gratifying increases compared with the previous year.”

In China, according to information supplied by the automaker, the drop in sales was the result of the end of special tax concession the government made for vehicles with smaller engines. And, there was one less sales day in January due to the Chinese New Year.

Sales in Germany were off slightly, the automaker said, that employee leasing extensions accounted for the dip.

No further information was available on the sales drops elsewhere. Overall, though, January deliveries were 495,000 vehicles, down 4.9 percent from last year’s 521,400.

Deliveries to customers by markets January January Change
2016 2017

Europe 121,100 126,700 4.7 pct.
W. Europe 106,200 109,100 2.7 pct.
Germany 40,600 38,600 -5.7 pct.
Central/East
Europe 14,900 17,600 18.7 pct.
Russia 4,500 4,600 2.8 pct.
North America 38,600 41,400 7.4 pct.
USA 20,100 23,500 17.1 pct.
South America 29,000 32,500 12.0 pct.
Brazil 19,500 16,700 -14.6 pct.
Asia-Pacific 320,400 283,100 -11.6 pct.
China 306,900 270,800 -11.8 pct.
Worldwide 521,400 485,900 -4.9 pct.