CHINA: Volkswagen admits reduction in sales growth and market share - report
13 Nov 2003
Source: just-auto.com editorial team
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German vehicle maker Volkswagen reported on Thursday a slowing of its sales growth in the intensely competitive Chinese market in the third quarter and said its dominant market share had been cut to less than a third, Reuters reported.
Volkswagen reportedly said it had sold 490,279 vehicles in China in the first three quarters of 2003, up 33% from a year earlier, but this growth rate was slower than the 52% growth seen in the first six months and slower than the market's growth rate, Reuters said.
The news agency report said total car output in China rocketed to 1.44 million in the first three quarters, up 87.2% on a year earlier, official figures show, prompting fears of a margin-sapping glut as car makers pump billions of dollars of investment into China.
Reuters noted that Detroit's big three - Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler - added to the pressure on Wednesday, saying they would export thousands of US-made vehicles to China in the next two years.
A company executive told Reuters that VW's market share in China, its largest market outside Germany, had dropped by about 5% from the middle of the year, but this was not a cause for alarm.
"We would have been able to sell more if we could have produced more," Michael Wilkes, Volkswagen's China-based spokesman, told Reuters, adding: "That we have a lower market share is also true, because we can't grow as fast as the market grows."
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