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.

Since mid-July, supplier shut-downs due to Covid-19 in South East Asia, especially in Malaysia, has worsened an already strained supply situation. These material shortages have led to temporary production halts at Volvo Cars’ facilities in Sweden, Belgium, China and the USA, with reduced production volumes 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 experienced during the same period in 2020. This will have an impact on revenue and profit, but Volvo Cars’ outlook for the full year still remains positive.

In the first eight months of the year, the company sold 483,426 cars globally, up 26.1% compared with the same period last year.

The sales of Volvo Cars’ Recharge line-up of chargeable models was robust and accounted for 24.2% of all cars sold in the month. In Europe, Volvo Cars reached an all-time high as 47% of all cars sold in August were from the Recharge line-up.

A solid sales performance was recorded in the USA in August with 10,686 cars sold, a 3% increase compared with the same period last year, led by strong customer demand, mainly for the XC90 – which was the best-selling model – followed by the XC60.

For the month of 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% compared with August last year.

European sales for the month were 13,052 cars, a 25.4% decline compared with the same period last year. The decline in sales was related to the material shortage, which affected the production volumes and, consequently, the sales performance in the region.