“The Volkswagen Group grew by around -2% overall in the first half of the year outside of China. We continued to gain ground, particularly in South America and Europe. It is especially pleasing to note that in our home region, the Electric Urban Car Family – launched just a few weeks ago – is being very well received by our customers. We have already taken more than 54,000 orders for these attractive entry-level vehicles from VW, Škoda, and CUPRA, even though only three of the four models are currently available. This is well above our expectations. The order book for all-electric vehicles in Europe has risen by more than 50% overall compared to the end of last year. The situation in China remains challenging, where we were unable to escape a significant total market decline of around -20%, despite initial positive momentum from our newly introduced, locally-developed electric vehicles. Globally, we are seeing a decline in deliveries of around -6%,” said Marco Schubert Member of the Group’s Extended Executive Committee for Sales.

Growth in South America (+8 %), Western Europe (+3%), and Central and Eastern Europe (+7%) only partially offset significant decline in China (-26%) driven by total market development; North America, after 8% growth in Q2, saw only a slight decline after six months (-3%).