Volkswagen's sales decline for 4th consecutive year in India

After they already had a steady start to the year, fortune of the Volkswagen’s Indian unit flipped, as soon as the global emission scandal came to light in September last year. The carmaker had clocked 17 per cent jump in sales in the first eight months, but the growth trend, however, reversed following the unprecedented dieselgate.

Thus, carmaker’s domestic sales declined for the fourth consecutive year in 2015, despite starting on a positive note. Also, the market share slipped to just 1.5 percent of the total passenger car market.

Last month, we had reported that carmaker’s(best seller Polo had witnessed a major 42 per cent month-on-month sales decrease. While the carmaker had sold a shade over 2000 Polos in the month before, November could only see 1169 Polos being delivered to the customers in the country.    

Volkswagen in September admitted to malpractice, in terms of the emission norms and said about 11 million of their cars worldwide were fitted with the ‘defeat device.’Volkswagen Group India, in regard to this, has recalled approximately 3,23,700 cars fitted with 1.2-litre, 1.5-litre, 1.6-litre, and 2.0-litre EA 189 diesel engines, which were manufactured and sold between 2008 and 2015. The recall has affected 1,98,500 units of Volkswagen cars alone, while Skoda and Audi has recalled 88,700 and 36,500 vehicles fitted with the EA 189 diesel engine, respectively.

Volkswagen had scaled down its Indian market share target to 7-8 percent in 2014, which was early estimated to be around 20 percent by 2018.