At almost 2.6 million, the Munich-based company sold more BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce brand vehicles than ever before, as the company announced on Tuesday. VW sold twelve percent more cars and commercial vehicles than in the previous year, when the chip crisis, missing wiring harnesses and other bottlenecks affected production. However, at 9.24 million vehicles, the Wolfsburg-based company's deliveries were still below the pre-crisis level, when sales had at times exceeded ten million cars. Nevertheless, Volkswagen Sales Director Hildegard Wortmann spoke of a solid development, considering the geopolitical and economic conditions. "We have grown faster than the market and have slightly increased our global market share," she wrote on the career network LinkedIn.

However, the core VW brand lagged behind the Group's other brands. At 4.87 million cars, sales were 6.7 percent higher than a year ago, but still well below the pre-crisis level. Brand Sales Director Imelda Labbe said that the figures show that the brand is on the right track. "We expect the market environment to remain challenging in 2024," she admitted.

Top-of-the-range models, on the other hand, were more in demand. According to BMW, the BMW brand alone sold almost 2.3 million cars, 7.3 percent more than a year ago. The Munich-based company thus defended its leading position in the global premium segment, it said. Demand for high-priced vehicles such as the 7 Series or the X7 was particularly strong, but electric cars also performed well. BMW Sales Director Jochen Goller referred to new models that had accelerated the ramp-up in electric mobility.

Electric cars accounted for 15 percent of BMW's total sales in 2023 and are expected to rise to a fifth this year. "We continue to see high demand for our all-electric products and, based on our strong, cross-brand product portfolio, we are aiming for sales of more than half a million all-electric vehicles in 2024," said Goller. Volkswagen sold 770,000 electric cars, or 8.3 percent of all vehicles from the Group's brands.

The two car manufacturers did particularly well in Western Europe, where BMW achieved an increase of 7.5 percent and the VW Group even sold a good fifth more cars. The two DAX companies also achieved growth on the North American market. In contrast, China, the most important individual market for both car manufacturers, lagged behind. In the People's Republic, long-time market leader VW is struggling with a price war for electric cars and recently had to relinquish the sales crown. China boss Ralf Brandstätter said that the situation would remain difficult over the next two years. "It's not just about market share. Profitability remains our top priority."

(Report by Christina Amann, edited by Ralf Banser. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at Berlin.Newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or Frankfurt.Newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets)