Volkswagen Group 2015 Worldwide Deliveries Decline 2%

(RTTNews) - German car giant Volkswagen Group (VKW.L), which was hit by the emission-scandal late last year, announced worldwide deliveries of over 9.93 million vehicles to customers in 2015, down 2% from 10.1 million vehicles in 2014. The company also stated that 2016 will be no less challenging.

Volkswagen said it has delivered more than four million units in one year for the first time in the overall European region. In Western Europe 3.43 million new vehicle we sold in 2015, representing a rise of 4.8 percent. The delivery situation in Germany remained positive at the end of the year with 4.0 percent.

Volkswagen Group also reported increases on other markets in Western Europe. Growth was particularly strong in Spain with 16.1 percent and Italy with 8.8 percent. The tense situation in Russia, with 36.8 percent decline continued to impact deliveries in Central and Eastern Europe.

In North America, deliveries improved 4.4 percent to 931,800 vehicles. At 607,100 units, deliveries increased 1.2 percent in the United States. Group deliveries in the tense South America region, however, declined 29.8 percent. This trend is chiefly attributable to deliveries in Brazil, which declined 38.1 percent to 389,900 units. Matthias Müller, CEO of Volkswagen, commented in Wolfsburg on Friday that "Delivering almost ten million vehicles is an excellent result, particularly in view of the continued challenging market situation in some regions as well as the diesel issue in the final quarter of last year,"

In a separate press release, Volkswagen announced that its Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles delivered 430,800 lightweight commercial vehicles to customers, down 3.5 percent from 446,600 in 2014.

Meanwhile, Volkswagen Passenger Cars delivered 5.82 million vehicles to customers worldwide in the full year 2015, down 4.8 percent from 2014.

AUDI AG (AUDVF.PK) reported worldwide deliveries improvement of 3.6 percent to around 1.80 million automobiles.