Volvo seemed rather pessimistic when it announced that it sold 11 percent fewer cars in China in 2012, than they did in 2011. As it turns out, however, that’s not true, as it has just been discovered that over half of all Volvo dealers in the country falsified their sales figures in order to get extra incentives from the manufacturer for achieving a certain target.
According to a Reuters report, in 2011, Volvo said it sold a total of 47,140 cars in 2011. In fact, they only managed to shift 39,871 units, therefore making last year’s 45,896 sales a 15 percent increase over the previous 12-month period!
“Volvo Cars in China had a dealer incentive programme in place with focus on retail sales, which created a retail delivery transparency issue, meaning that the reported retail sales did not reflect the actual sales situation,” Volvo spokesman Per-Åke Fröberg told the news agency.
Nevertheless, Volvo will not be adjusting its figures, as the falsified sales numbers did not lose them any money, and in fact, they don’t even call it cheating. What they will be doing from now on, though, is send representatives periodically to check up on all Chinese dealers, to make sure that their numbers stack up.
This way, future “transparency issues” will be avoided, and the 151-strong dealership network will be forced to report its sales in a precise manner, for fear of being caught.
“We believe we fixed the problem, but it was a painful process,” a senior Volvo executive told Reuters.
By Andrei Nedelea
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