Volvo News: Volvo Sets A Modest Sales Goal for the S90 in the U.S.

[William Maley]

The next member of the Volvo 90 Series family, the S90, will go on sale next month in the U.S. Anders Robertson, product manager for the 90 series at Volvo Car USA tells Automotive News the company expects to sell about 15,000 S90s during the first full year of sales. For some perspective, the segment that the S90 competes in - the midsize luxury sedan - sells around 300,000 vehicles per year. That means Volvo is hoping to capture about five percent of the segment sales.

 

That sales goal seems a bit small, but there is some reason for it. The S80, Volvo's previous flagship sedan only sold 1,887 models last year. The best sales came in 2007 when 12,347 S80 sedans were sold.

 

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)

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[G. David Felt]

OK, so maybe I am missing something, but if the S80 sedan only sold 12,347 in 2007 and the average transaction price was $75,000 that means gross sales was $926,025,000.

I wonder how much it cost to develop the auto in the first place, support, testing, etc. 

 

Did they ever make money on the auto? Even break even? I question how a company as small as Volvo can make money on such low production figures.

 

Any additional info on this from them?

[ZL-1]

Don't forget about sales outside the US...

[G. David Felt]

Don't forget about sales outside the US...

OK, true, globally, but then I checked out what Volvo stated and was honestly surprised.

 

Here is their actual numbers:

https://www.volvoclub.org.uk/press/releases/2009/2008sales.shtml

 

In 2007 they had a record year producing and selling a total of 458,323 total auto's produced globally.

The S80 made up a global sale of 42,527 so then that would make this a multi-billion dollar sales auto. But I would have to think this is still slim in comparison to other product lines.

 

They clearly are not as big as GM or Toyota.

[Suaviloquent]

Volvo will start going much higher as soon as their new vehicles start to take off in Europe. I think folks in Europe are much less reluctant to consider brands like Volvo compared to stuff like Cadillac or Lexus.

 

That's besides their ambitious goals from China.

[daves87rs]

I can see it doing maybe 10k...