Reality Check: Sluggish US Sales Threaten VW's Growth

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http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/declining-sales-in-us-market-pose-challenge-to-volkswagen-a-938102.html



VW has misjudged the US market, where it is underperforming its rivals and still has a market share of just 2.6 percent. The company's goal of becoming the world's biggest automaker by 2018 is at risk.

Reality Check: Sluggish US Sales Threaten VW's Growth
By Dietmar Hawranek
December 11, 2013 – 12:52 PM

The figure of negative 16.3 percent came as a shock to the Volkswagen management. It marks the decline in sales of VW cars in the United States in November. Meanwhile, total car sales in the American market rose by almost nine percent. Foreign competitors Ford, GM and Toyota, and domestic rivals Mercedes-Benz and BMW are all selling more cars.

"We're facing a headwind," VW CEO Martin Winterkorn said recently. That's an understatement. The sales drop in the US could even endanger his big goal of making VW the world's biggest carmaker by 2018.

Sales growth in North America and China is a major part of that plan. Until now, VW's market share in the US was just 2.6 percent, on a par with Subaru and well behind Korean maker Kia.

Winterkorn doesn't feel comfortable with that ranking. That's why VW invested more than one billion euros ($1.38 billion) in the construction of a plant in Chattanooga and in the development of a model specifically geared to the US market. And the plan appeared to be working -- between 2009 and 2012, VW doubled its sales in the US. But the latest sales figures are a rude awakening, and have left VW managers wondering what's gone wrong.