VW Group Surpasses Six Million

The Volkswagen Group is defying the economic crisis and gearing up to set a new sales milestone this year. For the first time in its history, the German maker sold 6.11 million vehicles (5.36 million if you exclude the Scania truck division) in the first nine months of the year, marking a 13.9 percent increase over the same period in 2010.

"We are very pleased with the development of the Group. Delivering six million vehicles in nine months represents a key milestone on the way to reaching our annual target of eight million vehicles sold in 2011," said Group Board member for Sales Christian Klingler.

"We are also expecting very good delivery figures for the fourth quarter. We continue to keep a close eye on developments in global automobile markets, some of which are highly volatile," Klingler added.

Regionally, the VW Group saw its sales increase in January to September 2011 by 17.3 percent to 1.92 million in the Asia / Pacific markets; by 21.4% to 485,400 units in North America; by 9.5% to 700,900 vehicles in South America and by 10.8% to 2.77 million units in Europe.

In its home market of Germany, the VW Group's deliveries grew by 12.3 percent to 864,400 units.

Overall, the Volkswagen brand sold 3.81 million (+12.3 percent) vehicles in the period to September; Audi delivered 973,200 units (+17.4 percent); Skoda 664,800 vehicles (+16.8 percent); SEAT 266,800 units (+3.1 percent) and VW Commercial 389,900 vehicles (+25.5 percent).