VW Records Highest April Volume Since 1971
April numbers are now in, and Volkswagen has just announced its seventh consecutive month of +30 percent sales growth. The lowdown on the high-volume performance: 37,525 deliveries, representing a 31.5 percent improvement and the company’s strongest April in more than three decades.
“The demand and enthusiasm for our products continues at a strong pace and we are beginning to see the fruits of our investments pay off, marking the best April in over forty years,” said Jonathan Browning, president and CEO of the Volkswagen Group of America, Inc.
April VW Sales: Jetta, Passat both top 10,000 deliveries However, it must be admitted that not all is peaches and cream for the VW folks, since much of its growth is coming from vehicles that have more than their share of caveats. Just a look at the some of the details from the company’s April sales report:
- The Volkswagen Passat did set an all-time monthly record of 10,096 deliveries, but note that Volkswagen sold exactly zero Passats in April of 2011, which obviously leads to an outsized impact on the company’s overall growth rate.
- Some 2,065 new customers took home a Volkswagen Beetle last month—the car’s highest total since 2003—but again, since VW recorded only 1 Beetle sale in April 2011, the growth rate here isn’t a good reflection of the car’s popularity.
- The hot-hatch Volkswagen GTI—touted by VW for ringing up its highest April sales volume ever—increased deliveries by just 16 units, for a .9 percent improvement.
- VW’s volume leader was the Volkswagen Jetta, with 13,754 sales, but this actually represented a 1.1 percent drop in sales as compared to the same month last year.
- The company also had three other models in the black last month, yet none of them accounted for more than 2,000 deliveries—The VW Golf advanced by 7.5 percent on 1,807 sales; the VW Eos improved by 10 percent, thanks to 735 sales; and the VW Touareg delivered a 12.2 percent sales jump and 718 units.
