Thursday, 6 October 2005
Volkswagen Unit Sales Still Down Over 16% YTD - And They Still Won't Call Me
« More McChronicles Chronicling | Main | Eat At Cowboy Sharkies »So I've been thinking about this Volkswagen thing. Maybe I've been a little too demanding. Maybe I haven't left the channels of communications open enough. So, today, I became a Volkswagen media contact. I again provided my name, phone number, address and, of course, I mentioned my blog. They sent me a nice email for joining that let me know that I now have special access. Cool. So what do I get? Well, as commenter "Wesley G" requested, more pictures of Kerri Martin...
Hey Volkswagen, see what I did there – I responded to customer feedback and provided more of what they wanted. Neat huh?
I also got VW's latest press release titled "VOLKSWAGEN OFFICIALLY REPORTS SEPTEMBER SALES INCREASE OF 3.7%" Pretty misleading headline if you ask me. They make it sound like sales are good. This, as you'll soon see, is laughable.
It has some marketing spin garbage and then it has this table:
Model breakdowns of U.S. sales in September were as follows:
|
|
Sep-05 Actual |
Sep-04 Actual |
Yr/Yr % change |
Sepl-05 YTD Actual |
Sep-04 YTD Actual |
Yr/Yr % change |
|
New Beetle - Coupe |
1,561 |
1,914 |
-18.4% |
12,472 |
16,237 |
-23.2% |
|
- Convertible |
1,552 |
1,327 |
17.0% |
16,020 |
17,508 |
-8.5% |
|
Total New Beetle |
3,113 |
3,241 |
-3.9% |
28,492 |
33,745 |
-15.6% |
|
Jetta Sdn |
9,694 |
6,274 |
54.5% |
71,824 |
63,281 |
13.5% |
|
Wgn |
84 |
1,054 |
-92.0% |
3,805 |
7,211 |
-47.2% |
|
Total Jetta |
9,778 |
7,328 |
33.4% |
75,629 |
70,492 |
7.3% |
|
Cabrio |
- |
- |
N/A |
- |
1 |
-100.0% |
|
Golf/GTI/R32 |
1,705 |
2,319 |
-26.5% |
11,961 |
19,269 |
-37.9% |
|
Passat Sdn |
5,065 |
3,917 |
29.3% |
24,585 |
39,175 |
-37.2% |
|
Wgn |
783 |
1,761 |
-55.5% |
8,564 |
11,210 |
-23.6% |
|
Total Passat |
5,848 |
5,678 |
3.0% |
33,149 |
50,385 |
-34.2% |
|
Phaeton |
64 |
113 |
-43.4% |
623 |
1,128 |
-44.8% |
|
Touareg |
1,138 |
2,193 |
-48.1% |
13,132 |
20,305 |
-35.3% |
|
T4 |
- |
- |
N/A |
- |
205 |
-100.0% |
|
TOTAL |
21,646 |
20,872 |
3.7% |
162,986 |
195,530 |
-16.6% |
Wow, talk about looking for the silver lining! Look close... the only VW model that is up YTD is the Jetta Sedan.
that they have
sold over 30,000 fewer cars
this year than they
had by the same time last year!
...and...
Touareg sales down 48% for the month, 35% YTD.
Phaeton sales down 43% for the month, 45% YTD.
Passat Sedans had a good month and they're still down almost 15,000 cars from last year!
So what IS selling? 2006 Jetta Sedans. The irony here is that their web site doesn't even list the 2006 Jetta as an available model. Imagine that – their web site shows the products they no longer make, and doesn't show the cars that are the most popular. No wonder sales are down. Why don't you pay me the $345M to square this deal? Disturbingly though, some of the pictures of the Jetta are of the 2006 model so it is really unclear which model you are looking at – and there are some pretty big differences between the '05 and '06 models. (hint: the '06 is the ugly one.)
Hey, Ms. Martin, if you are reading – my contact information can be found in your media contact list under "mattgalloway".
All I want is a simple phone conversation. An email. A cocktail napkin sent by pigeon. Why is this so hard?
