Cars and Drivers

Global Volkswagen Sales Fall 2% in 2015

Paul Ausick

Published: January 8, 2016 1:35 pm

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 3:15 pm

For the first time since 2002, sales of Volkswagen vehicles declined year over year in 2015. Global sales dropped 2% from a total of 10.137 million vehicles sold in 2014 to 9.93 million in 2015.

Among its brands, total VW sales fell 4.8% year over year and 7.9% in December 2015, when compared with December 2014. That should be no surprise to anyone given the emissions cheating scandal that hit VW’s turbo-diesel cars in October. The company sold more than 11 million diesel-powered vehicles with a software-controlled device that could sense the difference between when a vehicle was on the road or on a test bed and alter the emitted pollutants if the vehicle was being tested.

Including all brands such as Audi and Porsche, VW sold 607,100 units in the United States in 2015, up 1.2% compared with 2014 sales. December sales were down 2% in the United States, where the company’s diesel cars have been pulled from dealer showrooms.

The company’s Porsche division saw sales jump nearly 19% year over year to 225,100 units in 2015. Compared to 2014, Audi sales rose 3.6% to 1.741 million units worldwide.

By geography, Russian sales in 2015 dropped 36.8%, compared with 2014 sales, and VW sold just 16,300 units in Russia in December. Sales in Brazil tumbled 38.1% for the full year to 389,900 units, and December 2015 sales were down 54.1%, compared with December 2014.

Sales in Western Europe, including Germany, rose 2.5% for the year, while sales in Eastern Europe, including Russia, fell 8.3%. Sales in China fell 3.4% to 3.548 million units in 2015, down 3.4% from the 2014 total of 3.675 million. China is VW’s second-largest market, trailing Europe as a whole by about 500,000 unit sales in 2015.