Volvo set the bar too high with its sales projections for the US and China last year but won’t be leaving the US as some media has speculated, chief executive Haakan Samuelsson said.
He told the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter that a Chinese sales target of 200,000 vehicles by 2015 wasn’t “realistic”. Volvo car sales there officially fell 11% to 42,000 in 2012.
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He said: “We had 150 new dealers who didn’t know what Volvo stands for and a sales manager who didn’t speak the language. Sometimes when you start something, it’s not perfect and you have to make changes.”
Asked about the US, which is the company’s largest single market with 16% of sales, Samuelsson added: “maybe it was a mistake not building a plant there 15 years ago.”
Volvo’s US sales volumes have declined because its range was “too narrow”, he said, adding that the carmaker, owned by Geely of China, hoped to reverse the trend with the launch of two new models.
Volvo’s market share in the US fell to 0.46% in 2012 – compared with 0.53% in 2011 – prompting speculation in the American auto press that the brand could withdraw. Such a move was discounted by Samuelsson.
Volvo’s sales in the US last month rose 1.3% to 6,329, according to just-auto data. Year to date volume, however, was off almost 6% to 25,900. May market share was 0.4%, down 0.1% year on year.
