Geely’s Volvo Cars reported global sales of 45,786 cars in August, down 10.6% compared with the same period last year.
“Overall underlying demand in the car industry and for Volvo Cars’ products remained very robust,” the automaker said in a statement.
Since mid-July, supplier shutdowns due to Covid-19 in South East Asia, especially in Malaysia, had worsened an already strained supply situation. These material shortages have led to temporary production halts at the automakers’ factories in Sweden, Belgium, China and the US, with reduced production volume as a result.
“Volvo Cars continues to monitor the situation and currently expects that, for the second half of 2021, it will be challenging to achieve the volume levels achieved during the same period in 2020. This will have an impact on revenue and profit, but outlook for the full year 2021 still remains,” it added.
In the first eight months of the year, the company sold 483,426 cars worldwide, up 26.1% compared with the same period last year.
Sales of Recharge models remained strong and accounted for 24.2% of all cars sold in the month. In Europe, 47% of all cars sold in August were from the Recharge range.
The US reported a solid sales performance in August with 10,686 cars sold, a 3% increase.
August sales in China were impacted by the Covid-19 outbreaks in south east Asia. This led to lowered retail deliveries despite strong underlying demand and order intake. Total volumes for the month reached 13,112 cars, down 17.2%.
European sales last month were 13,052 cars, a 25.4% decline, related to the material shortage, which affected production volume and, consequently, sales performance.