Major German automotive groups are steering toward a year of weak sales, with third-quarter delivery figures dropping across all manufacturers. A sharp contraction in the Chinese market is severely impacting performance industry-wide, though some groups are partially compensating through gains in other regions. Declines in total deliveries range from just over six percent to nearly twenty percent, painting a challenging picture for the sector.
BMW recorded a group-level delivery decline of 6.3 percent to slightly over 551,000 vehicles, emerging as the most resilient among German manufacturers. In China, sales fell by nearly a quarter to roughly 114,300 automobiles. However, strong European demand for electric vehicles such as the new iX3 lifted regional sales by 2.7 percent to approximately 235,600 units. Furthermore, the company benefited from its Spartanburg plant in the United States, which helps avoid tariffs and supported a 2.5 percent sales increase to more than 106,700 vehicles. Over the first nine months of the year, the group reported 1.71 million vehicles delivered, representing a 4.9 percent decrease. The core brand dropped 6.8 percent to nearly 479,300 autos in the third quarter, remaining well ahead of rivals Mercedes and Audi.
Volkswagen experienced an acceleration in its downward trend, selling 1.89 million vehicles across all brands from July through September, which is 14.3 percent lower than in the previous year. The second-quarter drop had stood at 8.6 percent. The core brand performed worse, delivering more than 946,000 units, a 19.3 percent decline. Volkswagen's sales in the People's Republic plunged 38.5 percent to 405,800 vehicles, accounting for over 80 percent of the total group-level decline. Europe's largest automaker is contending with a shrinking overall market, intense price pressure, and rising domestic competition in China. For the first nine months, total group deliveries reached roughly six million vehicles, down 9.0 percent.
Audi suffered a near-fifth reduction in deliveries during the third quarter. The Ingolstadt-based Volkswagen subsidiary was impacted not only by China but also by the United States, where it lacks a local manufacturing plant to mitigate import tariffs. Model transitions for the A1 and Q2 volume models added further pressure, resulting in 314,905 delivered Audis, down 19.7 percent year on year. By comparison, in the third quarter of 2023, the brand had delivered nearly 480,000 vehicles of its core brand.
Porsche reported third-quarter deliveries of roughly 56,000 sports cars and off-road vehicles, marking a 15 percent decrease compared to the prior year. Nine-month sales dropped by a similar magnitude. Factors weighing on the results include the phase-out of internal combustion models Cayman and Boxster, the expiration of tax credits for electric vehicles in the United States, and ongoing declines in China, where nine-month figures fell 33 percent to about 21,500 vehicles. Porsche leadership anticipates that the company will ultimately sell no more than one-tenth of its vehicles in the Chinese market. In the peak year of 2020, China accounted for nearly 35 percent of the Volkswagen subsidiary's sales, a figure that dropped to under 15 percent with a continuing downward trend.
Mercedes-Benz delivered slightly over 407,000 passenger cars in the third quarter, down eight percent from the previous year, following a decline in the first half. Sales in China dropped 31 percent, driven by a difficult passenger car market environment and intense competition. China remains the automaker's primary market, representing nearly a third of all passenger car sales, and gains in the United States and Germany were insufficient to offset the regional drop. Sales outside China rose by one percent, while global sales of fully electric vehicles increased 61 percent year on year to 68,400 units.
