Volvo Cars breaks all records for sales in a quarter

Volvo Cars have become highly desirable in 2021 with the Swedish company, a subsidiary of the Chinese manufacturer Geely, reporting its best-ever quarterly sales.

Volvo Cars, which has its headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden, said global sales increased by 40.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2021, compared with the same period last year.

Total sales during the period amounted to 185,698 cars, up from 131,889 cars in the same period last year, Volvo Cars said in a media release.

In China, the world’s largest car market, sales increased by 117.7 per cent in the first three months of the year compared with the first quarter the year before. With a continued strong demand for the locally produced S90 luxury sedan, Volvo Cars recovered and improved sales lost due to COVID-19 restrictions 12 months earlier. Total first quarter sales reached 45,242 cars, increasing from 20,780 in the same period in 2020.

From January to March, US sales for Volvo Cars reached 27,239, which is an increase of 39.8 per cent compared with the same period last year, which was affected by the pandemic when many states implemented stay-at-home restrictions.

In the first three months of 2021, European car sales grew to 87,457, up 24 per cent compared to the same period last year. This increase was mainly driven by the markets that managed to cope with the pandemic-related shutdowns, together with a strong increase in sales in Sweden, and the UK, which had the highest sales in 30 years.

In March, the XC40 compact SUV was the top-selling model with sales of 23,958 cars (12,462 12 months earlier), followed by the XC60 mid-size SUV, with total sales of 21,186 cars (12,730), and the Volvo XC90, the premium SUV, with 9,893 cars (5,758).

Volvo Cars’ Recharge line-up of chargeable models, with a fully electric or plug-in hybrid powertrain, remained strong and accounted for 26 per cent of all Volvo cars sold worldwide in March. In Europe, the share of Recharge cars of overall sales was 39 per cent.

For the first quarter of 2021, Volvo Cars more than tripled its numbers of subscriptions sold online through its Care by Volvo offer, compared to the same period last year. It also saw a quarter-on-quarter growth of 22 per cent.

Volvo Cars announced last month that it would only manufacture electric cars by 2030, with all sales to be online.

Jim Holder, Editorial Director at What Car? told The Telegraph that Volvo had become a "classless premium badge when people are getting bored of the same old German marques".

"Volvo gives the same quality but in a different way," Holder said.

"If you turn up on the school run in a giant Audi or BMW, you’re seen as a show-off, but if you arrive in a Volvo then that’s respected."