I have to admit this isn't much of a surprise.
Volvo's all-new luxury sport-utility vehicle, the XC90, is shooting out the lights from a sales perspective. From a completely unscientific perspective, I've been seeing quite a few roaming the roads around the New York Tri-State region — more than I'd expect for such a fresh product.
And, according to Volvo, the company has received 57,000 orders for the all-new SUV. That's beyond the company's forecast of 50,000 copies in the first year of sales.
Now here's the kicker: Over three fourths of its buyers are going for the high-end Inscription model.
I wonder how many buyers would go for the R-Design version if that was available...
Newsflash to all automakers: build something very attractive, has leading technology and meets your target market's needs and blam-o you'll knock it out the park!
Volvo's press release follows:Huge demand for top of the range Volvo XC90
Three quarters of the orders for Volvo’s new XC90 are for the top of the range Inscription model, Volvo Cars has announced.
Volvo Cars also said it has received nearly 57,000 orders globally for the new XC90, outstripping forecast sales for this year of 50,000. The company is running three shifts at its plant in Torslanda, Sweden, to meet demand.
“With 76 percent of customers choosing the top end Inscription model, it is fair to say that we have now entrenched our position as a premium car maker,” said Alain Visser, Senior Vice President for Marketing Sales and Customer Service.
The new XC90 marks the beginning of a new chapter in Volvo’s history, capturing its future design direction, incorporating its own range of new technologies and utilizing its new Scalable Product Architecture (SPA) technology.
The latest update on sales for the XC90 came as Volvo reported its financial results for the first half of 2015.
The company reported an operating profit of SEK1,660m for the first half of 2015, compared to SEK968m* for the same period in 2014. Revenue for the first half was SEK75,215m, up from SEK66,982m* in the first half of 2014.
Volvo is investing in a global transformation as part of its long term strategic ambition to enhance its position as a global premium car maker. Driven by the complete renewal of its product range, Volvo is aiming to almost double sales to around 800,000 cars a year in the medium term.
In the first half, Volvo also announced it will build a new manufacturing facility in South Carolina. Construction on the $500m plant near Charleston will start this fall and the new facility will have initial production of around 100,000 cars per year and be completed by 2018.
* The comparative figures for 2014 are restated, as Volvo Cars gained control over the Chinese industrial entities and consolidated them into Volvo Car Group as of January 1, 2015. As the incorporation of these entities is a common control transaction, Volvo Car Group has elected to apply predecessor accounting, meaning that the comparative information is presented as if the incorporated entities had always been controlled by Volvo Car Group. More information can be found in the Group's Interim Report First Half Year 2015.