Volvo Makes Huge Profit Gains

2016 Volvo V60 Cross Country (Credit: Volvo )

Volvo is enjoying a big upswing in sales, after suffering a long drought. While the company’s overall sales volume has been flagging in the United States and even China, worldwide its numbers are up thanks to a strong European car market. As a result, Automotive News is reporting that Volvo saw $8.8 billion in revenue growth for the first half of 2015.

The company’s CEO Hakan Samuelsson is predicting that profits will continue to increase substantially throughout the end of the year. While the strength of Europe is a contributing factor to that positive outlook, the United States is also playing a key role.

American Volvo sales have been improving, but they’re nowhere near as robust as many other premium brands. Samuelsson is characterizing the U.S. as a market that is changing from being a “problem” for the company to being an area where it can see true growth once more.

One big contributing factor to Volvo’s increasing profits is the popularity of the all-new 2016 XC90 crossover. The company says that 57,000 orders for the vehicle have been received so far.

With profits in the United States stabilizing and probably swinging into the black for the rest of 2015, expect to see the Swedes concentrate more on this market. By 2018 the automaker will have a fully functional production facility in South Carolina, which is supposed to pump tens of thousands of cars into the local market.

At the tail end of 2014, a number of publications declared that Volvo was all but dead in the United States, some even predicting that the brand would close its dealer network and completely withdraw. Interestingly enough, the U.S., along with Europe, is actually helping soften the blow of a slowing Chinese market.