Volvo 1st to beat 08
December 4th, 2009 by Richard Aucock
VOLVO says it will become the first premium brand to sell more new cars in 2009 than it did last year.
New car sales to date stand at 31,393… with 2008’s year-long total of 31,655 in clear sight!
This will also see the brand exceed its Q4 sales target of selling more than 10,000 cars… giving Volvo its best set of sales figures in nearly 2 decades.
Peter Rask, MD of Volvo Car UK, said ‘2009 has been a challenging year for the whole automotive industry but I’m very pleased that Volvo has emerged from this difficult period in such a strong position.
‘Equally pleasing is that we are attracting new customers across all model lines.’
He also singled out Volvo car dealers for special praise. ‘It’s also very welcome to see that Volvo dealers are sharing in the success, and we are all looking forward to a number of exciting new models, including the new C30, new C70 and the forthcoming all-new S60.’
Scrappage sales have indeed helped Volvo, but the firm also points out ‘unprecedented sales growth’ of the luxury SUV XC90. The Volvo V70 remains the UK’s best-selling large estate car as well.
The heartland is the eco cars, though. Volvo’s DRIVe range is now available across the majority of Volvo models and up to the end of November 2009 accounted for 52 percent of C30 sales, 50 percent of XC60 sales, 52 percent of S40 saloon and 67 percent of V50 sales.
Car sales up 57% – could hit 2m
Tags: new car sales, new car scrap, scrappage, SMMT, Volvo