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Cars and Drivers

Golf Helps Volkswagen Boost Sales in May

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Volkswagen Golf 2015
Volkswagen AG
Volkswagen management has said that if only the car manufacturer could have one or two cars that met with strong demand, that would allow its U.S. division to have time to build an entire product line. That, in turn would help it compete with other mainstream manufacturers. VW has not proven that point, but it is in the early stages of showing the strategy could work in the future. The Golf family of cars has started to gain rapid sales, as it releases newer versions of the line.

In May, VW sold 34,758 cars, up 8%. By the standards of other leading car companies, the figure is a disappointment. But the numbers would have collapsed if Golf sales had not surged.

Sales of the base Golf rose 188% to 1,972. Sales of the sporty GTI were up 65% to 1,826. Adding to that were three brand new models that were not available last year. The Golf R sold 312 units. The e-Golf sold 410 units, and the Golf SportWagen sold 1,788.

These numbers barely offset terrible sales across several products. Beetle sales dropped 2% to 2,685. Jetta SportsWagen sale collapsed 88% to 225. CC sales were slaughtered, down 44% to 582. The trouble with the model lines other than the Golf shows that VW management’s contention about needing broader model lines is true.

VW’s product line in the United Kingdom is much larger than the one in America. Critics have to wonder why more of those models are not sold in the United States. Despite encouraging results, VW has not expanded its model line, as management says is necessary to give VW a chance in the America.

ALSO READ: 10 Cars Americans Do Not Want to Buy

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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