Volkswagen Sales Jump in January

The 2018 deadline set by Volkswagen's top brass for the car maker to become the number one in the world is slowly approaching, but this doesn't mean VW can sit on its back and let time fly by. The pro-active way of thinking has already brought the automaker a great deal of success in January, as shown by the sales figures posted today.

In the first month of the year, the auto maker sold 418,800 vehicles, an increase of 16.5 percent compared to the same period of last year. The best selling brand in the group's portfolio was, as usual, Volkswagen Passenger Cars, with the bulk of the models sold wearing the VW badge.

“Our young and environmentally-friendly model range is exactly what customers all over the world are looking for,” said Christian Klingler, Volkswagen member of the board for Sales and Marketing.

All the markets the car maker is present in have been friendly in January, with the highest increase being reported in China (including Hong Kong). Here, the group managed to get to the hearts and minds of 175,000 people (out of the total 187,700 people in the entire Asia Pacific region which purchased a Volkswagen car last month).

Europe managed to follow China in second place in terms of the units sold, as the market where Volkswagen sold 124,600. That number, however, remains a decrease, a small one, indeed, but still a decrease: 1.2 percent down.

The emerging markets, like India, although fighting way down in the chart of units sold, managed to post a tenfold increase in sales compared to January 2010.