Global sales for the brand has declined in the last 12 months.
Nothing surprising here as there has been a general downward trend affecting almost all vehicle brands from around the world as this is a generally declining global market.
Volkswagen succeeded in maintaining a stable market share in the reporting month and a slight increase for the year to date. As expected, fewer vehicles were once again delivered in Europe (-9.9 percent) following a particularly strong performance in August 2018. In China, Volkswagen increased its market share slightly in a shrinking overall market. In Brazil and the USA, Volkswagen recorded a marked increase of 15.4 respectively 9.8 percent.
In the Asia-Pacific region, the Volkswagen brand closed the reporting month with a decrease of 3.0 percent, delivering 263,900 vehicles. In China, the overall market continued to shrink. Volkswagen delivered 252,700 vehicles, 1.6 percent fewer than the same month last year, and therefore further expanded its market share.
For Malaysia, Volkswagen saw a drop of 25.9 per cent in sales at the end of August despite its recent sales carnival and heavy discounting as current stocks were mostly ageing vehicles like the Polo hatchback with RM4,000 savings, Beetle with RM5,000 savings, Vento with RM10,000 savings, Passat with RM15,000 savings and the new Tiguan with RM2,000 savings.
Volkswagen in Malaysia is about to launch the 5-door luxury fastback Arteon at a possible selling price of between RM290,000 to RM295,000. The variant of the Arteon that’s being brought to Malaysia will be the Arteon 2.0 TSI 4motion R-Line. It comes with a 2-litre TSI engine, a 7-speed wet clutch DSG, and an all-wheel drive system. The engine is tuned to produced 280PS and 350Nm of torque which is the highest output of any petrol-powered Arteon.
Initially slated for local assembly to get a favourable pricing, the Arteon will be launched as a fully imported car and this puts its asking price very close to the premium Audi A5 fastback which is priced a little higher at RM338,000. To date the order taking for the Arteon has been low (2-3 units with each dealer) despite its good looks and high specification.
