Months after the emissions scandal surrounding the company broke out, the worldwide sale of Volkswagen brand vehicles in March fell slightly from the prior-year period, at a decline of 2.7 percent, Volkswagen AG announced Friday.
The company tallied 543,700 deliveries of Volkswagen cars in the month, and 1.4 million deliveries for the first quarter in total, which signifies a 1.3 percent year-over-year decrease for the period.
The brand had its best quarter ever in China in terms of deliveries, as the 722,800 sold marked a 6.5 percent improvement.
Though it had success in China, and also Central and Eastern Europe to a lesser extent, the company struggled to deliver cars in all other regionally-defined markets. Nowhere else were these struggles more apparent than South America. Year-over-year sales in the region were down 27.6 percent in March and 31.3 percent for the quarter, signifying 32,400 and 88,400 deliveries respectively. More specifically, sales in Brazil dropped 35.2 percent for the month and 39.2 percent for the quarter.
In North America, the brand experienced a 5.3 percent decrease in deliveries in March, and a 6.5 percent drop for the quarter. The brand especially felt the sting of the drop in the U.S., where deliveries plummeted 10.4 percent to 26,900 for the month and 12.5 percent to 69,300 for the quarter.
In Western Europe, Volkswagen experienced a 2 percent drop in deliveries in March. Deliveries for the quarter fell from 381,700 to 379,600.
In its native Germany, sales of the Volkswagen brand dropped by 8.2 percent in March and 3.8 percent in the first quarter.