Sales up for Volvo Car UK in 2012

The Volvo group has its origins in 1927 when the first Volvo car was rolled off the production line at the factory in Gothenburg and since then there has been no looking back. 

2011 saw Volvo Car UK emerge as one of the fastest growing luxury car brands and at the start of 2012, there is a fresh palate of cars on offer. The latest being the V40 unveiled at the 2012 Geneva International Motor Show.

The all-new Volvo V40 is the first car from the Scandinavian car maker to be created around its human-centric 'Designed around You' platform. One look at this five-door, five-seater hatchback and you it is a sibling of larger Volvo's.

The V40 aims to take on the BMW 1-Series hathcback and the Audi A3 with a mix of unique Scandinavian design, enhanced safety features and the driving dynamics never seen before in a Volvo. Talking about other models, the XC60 continues to be amongst Volvo's top selling models, followed by its siblings the S60 and the V60.

Speaking of its competitors, the Audi Group set a new record for sales, revenue and key earnings in the 2011 fiscal year. Audi sold over 13 lakh cars, the company's revenue went up by €5.3 billion (Rs. 346 crore) in 2011 pushing the total revenue up to €44.1 billion (Rs. 2,845 crore). The operating return on sales climbed from 9.4 to 12.1 percent. The number of Audi vehicles delivered during 2011 went up by 19.2 percent from 10,92,411 units in 2010 to 13,02,659 units in 2011.

BMW's sales rose 3.1 percent to 16,405 in January in US, while Mercedes' rose 24 percent to 20,306 (mostly due to its C-Class model).

The year 2012 also sees the launch of the world's first diesel plug-in hybrid, the Volvo V60 D6, due to start production in October, making a little more room for Volvo to gather sales figures from hybrid vehicles.