“The massive semiconductor-related effects on production could not be fully compensated for over the course of the year,” said VW sales director Klaus Zellmer. In view of these “extremely challenging conditions”, the performance in terms of sales is still satisfactory overall. The group today reported a drop in deliveries of 8.1 percent compared to the already weak first Corona year 2020. VW sold just under 4.9 million vehicles, with a particularly strong decline in China, while North America increased.
Although, in the electrical department, things went really well. In the case of alternative drives, there was an increase of around 73 percent to over 369,000 models sold, including 263,000 purely electric vehicles. Porsche can also cool the sparkling wine. The sports car brand in the VW Group sold 11 percent more vehicles worldwide than in 2020. Things went particularly well in the USA, while China remained the largest single market.
BMW also had a successful year in 2021. The group’s sales, which in addition to the core brand BMW also include Mini, Rolls-Royce and motorcycles, rose by 8.4 percent to a good 2.5 million. The core brand BMW achieved a sales record, with sales increasing by 9.1 percent to 2.2 million cars. BMW thus regained the crown in the premium segment. Business was driven by the high demand in the USA, also at Bayern.
Mercedes reported a 5 percent drop in sales at the end of last week. Like the competition, Daimler pointed out the lack of chips and general problems in the supply chains. The supply situation remains uncertain and will also affect production and sales in the coming quarters.
The figures for the registration statistics for 2021 will be presented next Monday morning; according to the latest available data, there were 222,155 new car registrations by November. That was 1.3 percent less than in the same period in 2020 and more than a quarter fewer new car registrations than in the year before the 2019 corona pandemic.
Austria’s largest car importer, the VW subsidiary Porsche Holding in Salzburg, had forecast the overall market in 2021 with 238,000 to 240,000 new car registrations (in 2020 there were 248,740 new registrations).
