Volvo Cars, a Swedish company, sharply reduced its sales projection for the year on Wednesday, citing Chinese, European, and American auto markets as being “increasingly under pressure.”
The Chinese-owned carmaker’s third-quarter net profit increased from 3.2 billion kronor ($416 million) in 2023 to 4.4 billion kronor.
Volvo Cars, however, stated that it anticipated only modest growth in the fourth quarter.
“As a result of this, we now anticipate full-year sales growth of 7-8 percent instead of 12-15 percent,” CEO Jim Rowan said in the company’s third quarter earnings report.
In the third quarter, the automaker reported a 3% increase in sales to 172,849 vehicles.
The quarter’s revenue of 92.8 billion kronor just above the 92 billion kronor recorded for the same period last year.
In the meantime, operating income increased from 4.5 billion kronor for the third quarter of 2023 to 5.8 billion kronor.
“The car market in our main regions of China, Europe and the US is increasingly under pressure which affects demand,” Rowan said.
According to the CEO, the company’s revenues increased by 10% in the first nine months of the year, putting it in a position “to outgrow the premium car market in 2024, which is expected to grow by less than one percent this year.”
In September, the carmaker declared that it was abandoning its 2030 aim of being all electric and reducing it to 90–100%.
Volvo declared its intention to switch to all-electric vehicles by 2021.
It stated that a “limited number of mild hybrid models to be sold, if needed” will be permitted to account for 0–10% of its sales under its new goal.
Fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, or electrified models, accounted for 48% of all automobile sales in the third quarter.
