The first three months of this year represent the most successful first quarter in the history of the Volkswagen Group.

The group delivered 1.572 million vehicles worldwide under increasingly difficult market conditions, a seven per cent increase on the prior-year period, said an official spokesman.

Volkswagen Middle East witnessed a staggering increase of 34 per cent in sales across the region over the same period compared to last year.

“In the Middle East, the Jetta was a huge factor to our success with sales more than doubling compared to last year.  The Jetta has now become one of our top selling models in the region.  Our new coupe-convertible, the Eos, is also doing extremely well regionally,” said managing director of Volkswagen Middle East Hans-Dieter Keller.

“The Touareg is still winning the hearts and minds of customers in the Middle East with it being the most popular Volkswagen vehicle in the region,” Keller added.

 “For 2008 we are confident that we will reach a new delivery record especially with the imminent launch of our new compact Sports Utility Vehicle, the Tiguan which will enter this market in May.  Globally, the Tiguan has created an enormous amount of interest and we expect no less in this region.  We anticipate the Tiguan to be a large contributor to our sales growth in 2008.”

Worldwide, the high-volume markets of China and Brazil played an important role in the Group’s first quarter sales performance: in China, 268,204 vehicles were sold in the first three months. In Brazil, the group’s third largest market, sales rose to 147,752 vehicles (+ 23.3 per cent).

The group also expanded substantially on the growth markets of Russia and India, with vehicle deliveries rising by more than 45 per cent in both cases. In Russia, the Group sold 22,643 vehicles (+ 57.6 per cent), in India 4,980 (+46.1 per cent).

In the shrinking US automobile market, the group sold 72,224 vehicles (-0.7 per cent), on a par with the same period in 2007, and grew its market share.

In Germany, group first-quarter deliveries rose by 2.6 per cent to 240,654 vehicles, bringing the group’s share of the passenger car market to a record 32.3 per cent.  Globally, the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand delivered 920,209 vehicles (+8.3 per cent).

In Western Europe, 771,716 vehicles were delivered, and the market share of 18.6 per cent corresponded to the high level of the comparable prior-year period. – TradeArabia News Service