It may only be February yet already Volvo is expecting 2016 to be its most successful year to date.
In a statement, Volvo Cars president and chief executive Hakan Samuelsson said that on the back of high demand in China, Europe and the United States, the Swedish automaker’s sales should rise for the third consecutive year.
Last year, Volvo managed to sell a total of 503,127 vehicles, the first time in its 89-year history that it has sold more than half a million cars in a calendar year and well up on the 466,000 cars it sold in 2014.
2015 proved significant for the automaker as the second-generation XC90 SUV was introduced and by the end of the year, over 88,000 orders for the car had been placed. This resulted in a third shift at the Torslanda manufacturing plant being added for the first time since 2008, creating almost 1,500 jobs.
In December, Volvo also unveiled the S90 which is expected to play a key role in the company’s ambitious 2016 sales goals.
In the medium term, Volvo intends on increasing sales to roughly 800,000 cars annually, helped in part by a new manufacturing facility it’s constructing in South Carolina that should become operational in 2018.
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