WOLFSBURG (dpa-AFX) - Weak performance by Audi, sluggish business in China, the slump in e-cars: 2024 also brought the ailing carmaker Volkswagen a group-wide decline in sales. Worldwide, 2.3 percent fewer vehicles of all group brands were delivered than in the previous year, according to the Wolfsburg-based company. Nevertheless, the self-imposed target of 9 million deliveries was achieved – albeit by a narrow margin: 9.03 million vehicles were delivered in the end.

"In a challenging market environment, we delivered a total of 9 million vehicles in 2024," said Group CEO Oliver Blume. Audi Sales Director Marco Schubert, who is also responsible for the division in the group as a whole, spoke of a "solid performance". He said that things had picked up again, especially in the final quarter. After sales were down almost 3 percent by the end of September, they were only down 0.8 percent in the three months that followed.

Downturn in China and for e-cars

The main problems for the group are its business in China and the slump in e-cars. In China, sales plummeted by almost ten percent, while global sales of electric cars shrank by 3.4 percent, and in the US by as much as 30 percent. Worldwide, 745,000 electric models of all group brands were delivered last year. Only one in twelve new cars was a pure electric car.

"In China, competition continues to be dominated by a massive price war," explained Schubert, referring to the long-time largest market of the Wolfsburg-based company. In the final quarter, however, the company was almost back to the previous year's level there. And with a market share of over 20 percent, Volkswagen continues to lead the field in combustion engines.

In contrast, the local challenger BYD has long since overtaken in the booming electric car segment in China and overall. New models from the cooperation with the electric carmaker XPeng should now turn things around for VW. However, the market in China is expected to remain challenging in 2025, it was said.

Shrinking home market

In its German home market, the group lost 2.2 percent, while sales in Western Europe as a whole remained almost stable at minus 0.4 percent. By contrast, there were noticeable increases in North (6 percent) and South America (15 percent). In both regions combined, however, VW sells only half as many cars as in China alone.

The core VW brand in particular is suffering from high costs and low capacity utilization at its plants. Shortly before Christmas, the company and the union agreed on a restructuring program after a long struggle. Technical capacity at VW's German plants is to be reduced by over 700,000 vehicles. 35,000 jobs will be lost by 2030. The job cuts are to be implemented without compulsory redundancies.

Audi weighs on

But in the end, it was not so much the faltering core brand that was to blame for the decline in sales as Audi. The Ingolstadt-based VW subsidiary recorded a 12 percent drop in sales. The core brand Volkswagen Passenger Cars, which accounts for more than half of all sales, fell by 1.4 percent, while the sports car maker Porsche AG fell by 3 percent. By contrast, Seat/Cupra (7.5 percent) and Skoda (6.9 percent) reported increases. However, this could not offset the declines at the other brands.

Sales of the brands of the Traton commercial vehicle holding company (MAN, Scania, International, VW Truck & Bus) fell by 1.2 percent to 334,200 vehicles over the year as a whole.

The decline at VW was less severe than at other carmakers. At BMW and Mercedes-Benz, sales in 2024 had each fallen by around four percent. In 2023, the VW Group had still delivered more than 9.2 million vehicles of all brands, significantly more than a year earlier. VW had already abandoned its goal of exceeding this figure by up to three percent in 2024 in September.

Europe's largest carmaker is still far from its previous record figures: in 2019, Volkswagen had still managed almost 11 million deliveries, making it even number one worldwide, ahead of Toyota. VW has since given up the fight for global market leadership. Profitability is more important than sheer volume, it said./fjo/DP/men