Marque charges to recovery

Volvo Cars has reported the strongest second-half sales numbers in its history during 2020 with demand for its electrified models boosting its recovery from the impact of Covid-19.

The company says it reacted decisively to mitigate the effect of the pandemic during the first half of the year.

This allowed it to quickly restart operations after a brief shutdown and embark on recovery, which was assisted by sales from its Recharge line-up.

The share of Recharge models, with fully electric or plug-in hybrid powertrains, more than doubled last year compared to 2019. 

In Europe, the share of Recharge cars of its overall new-vehicle registrations was 29 per cent, making Volvo the leading brand in the region for chargeable cars. It was also a leading plug-in hybrid marque in the US.

In China and the US, its two largest individual markets, the company reported growing sales for the full year as it managed to more than recover a first-half drop during the second six months of 2020.

Globally, Volvo Cars sold 661,713 units in 2020 – down by 6.2 per cent compared to 2019. 

Although final numbers are yet to be confirmed, the company outperformed its competitors and gained market share in all its main sales regions during the first 11 months of the year.

During the year, the XC60, pictured, was Volvo’s top-selling model with total sales of 191,696 in 2020 compared to 2019’s total of 204,965.

It followed by the XC40 on 185,406 units (2019 – 139,847) and the XC90 on 92,458 (2019 – 100,729).

Volvo Cars says it is committed to becoming a premium electric car company and in coming years will launch several fully electric models. 

By 2025, it aims for its global sales to consist of 50 per cent fully electric cars with the rest being hybrids. It is currently the only marque to offer a plug-in hybrid variant of every model in its portfolio.