Volkswagen deliveries fall as China slump deepens in second quarter

Volkswagen Group’s second-quarter deliveries fell 8.6% to 2.077 million vehicles, dragged by a 36.6% drop in China that marked the steepest quarterly decline in four years. North America rose 7.7% and Western Europe climbed 1.8%, but the split showed how sharply the group’s performance has diverged by region.

The company delivered 4.1 million vehicles in the first half of 2026 and said growth outside China was around 2% over that period. Its all-electric vehicle order book in Europe rose by more than 50%, and the Electric Urban Car Family, launched only a few weeks earlier, was being well received in Volkswagen’s home region. That left China as the clear pressure point, not a broad collapse across all of Volkswagen’s markets.

The squeeze has been building for months. On April 23, Volkswagen held a China investor update in Beijing, where Oliver Blume and Ralf Brandstätter presented the company’s “in China, for China” strategy to investors and analysts. The latest delivery figures show how hard that reset remains, even as Volkswagen tries to rebuild its position in a market that has become far less forgiving for foreign brands.

Volkswagen’s current numbers also look different against last year’s scale. The group delivered 8,983,900 vehicles in fiscal 2025, down 0.5% from 2024, and generated sales revenue of €321.9 billion. In 2025, Volkswagen said it held a 28% share of Europe’s EV market, a reminder that it still has scale and traction in Europe even as China weakens its global balance.

The pressure is not confined to Wolfsburg. BMW also saw second-quarter deliveries slide as Chinese demand softened, underscoring that the slowdown is hitting multiple premium carmakers at once. For Volkswagen, the combination of falling China volume, slower EV momentum in its biggest growth market, and still-limited gains elsewhere leaves a harder task ahead for factories, suppliers and investment plans across Europe.