The Volkswagen Group said it had booked record first half sales for 2018, delivering 5.5m vehicles globally, up 7.1%.
Deliveries in June rose 4.1% to 958,600 new vehicles.
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“Our core brands recorded strong growth in the first half year,” Fred Kappler, head of group sales, said.
But he cautioned: “We expect deliveries in the second half to be affected by the introduction of the new WLTP standard.”
Some vehicles would probably be delivered later than planned, he added.
June sales in Europe rose 11% to 456,800 with Germany up 5% to 130,600 and 75,000 units delivered in Central and Eastern Europe, a rise of 11.9%. Europe H1 sales rose 6.5% to 2.4m.
North America region June sales were flat – up just 0.8% to 465,000. US sales rose 6.3% to 311,900. The region saw 13.1% growth in the first half.
Asia-Pacific sales grew 8.9% to 2.1m in the first six months but dipped 1.2% to 342,900 in June (-1.2%).
Said VW: “There was a noticeable reluctance to buy on the part of consumers” in China in June, with deliveries declining by 2.2% “this was attributable to the lower tariffs on imported vehicles which came into effect on 1 July 2018”.
