Volkswagen China sees Q3 sales fall 4.2%

Volkswagen Group China, the biggest overseas carmaker in the country, posted a 4.2 percent decline in third-quarter sales as the Beijing Olympics and a stock market slump deterred drivers from buying new automobiles.

The automaker sold 241,171 vehicles in the July-September period compared with 251,852 a year earlier. Bloomberg News derived the number by subtracting first-half figures from the nine-month tally announced by the company in an e-mailed statement on Thursday.

Industrywide sales in the world's second-largest auto market fell for the first time in three years in August as traffic controls put in place to curb pollution during the Beijing Olympics damped demand. Car sales have also been hit by a 63 percent plunge in China's benchmark CSI 300 stock index this year and the wider global economic slowdown.

These factors are "challenging automakers in China as well as in the world,'' Winfried Vahland, head of Volkswagen's China unit, said in the statement. "We will do our best to overcome this huge challenge'' in the months ahead.

Rudolf Dreithaler, Volkswagen's Beijing-based spokesman, confirmed Bloomberg's calculations.

Volkswagen sold a total of 772,783 vehicles to consumers in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau in the first nine months, 13 percent more than a year earlier. That's in line with the carmaker's targets, according to the statement. The Wolfsburg, Germany-based automaker reiterated its full-year sales forecast of 1 million vehicles.

New Models

Volkswagen added a new version of the Santana, China's bestselling car, in January and the new Lavida in June to fend off competition from General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motors Corp. The automaker will also introduce a new Bora before the end of the month.

The carmaker builds vehicles in China through ventures with SAIC Motor Corp. and China FAW Group Corp., the country's two largest domestic automakers.

China's industrywide vehicle sales rose 14 percent in the first eight months of the year to 6.48 million, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. The group is yet to release September sales numbers. The full-year tally may be lower than the group's 10 million forecast, it said on Sept. 17.

Volkswagen-brand sales increased 7.5 percent in the first nine months to 637,857, the carmaker said. Audi brand sales rose 19 percent to 89,715.