Braunschweig, 7 May 2019. After the record year of 2018, Volkswagen Financial Services also made a positive start to the new financial year. The portfolio of contracts continued to grow in the first quarter and new contracts remained at a constant high level. "The increasing economic challenges in some regions of the world were compensated by the strong growth in other markets which allowed us to further increase our contract portfolio. This confirms the importance of our broad global presence, which we have successfully expanded in recent years," said Lars Henner Santelmann, Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Financial Services AG.
The total number of contracts rose to more than 20.5 million, an increase of 5.5 percent. At the same time, new contracts remained stable at almost 1.95 million in the first quarter of 2019. Negative deviations in financing and insurance are mainly the result of the automotive markets in Turkey and Mexico. Across all product groups, new contracts for Porsche, SEAT, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and non-Group brands developed very positively.
The contract portfolio included: 6.5 million financing contracts (+6.0 percent), 4.4 million leasing contracts (+7.0 percent), 4.1 million service contracts (+5.8 percent) and 5.6 million insurance contracts (+3.5 percent).
In the first three months of 2019, new financing contracts totaled 586 thousand (-4.4 percent). Furthermore, 458 thousand new leasing contracts (+4.3 percent), 392 thousand new service contracts (+5.9 percent) and 514 thousand new insurance contracts (-2.5 percent) were signed.
Growth also continued in the German market. The contract portfolio rose to 6.09 million contracts at the end of March 2019 (previous year: 5.96 million contracts; +2.2 percent). New contracts were also up on the previous year at 547 thousand contracts (previous year: 538 thousand contracts; +1.7 percent).
