Volvo sold 269,765 units worldwide between January and August 2013, down 2.5% compared to the same period in 2012, despite sales growing 4.7%, year-on-year in August, to 26,998.

Sales fell 5.6% in the US for the period, to 44,005, and 7.1% in the EU20 region, to 137,609, though these were partially offset a bump of 40.2% in Chinese sales, to 37,661. Sales in the rest for the rest of the world were down 8.2%, at 50,490.

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As a result of the lower sales, and negative exchange rates, Volvo’s global revenue fell from SEK65.3bn (£6.2bn) to SEK56.4bn during H1 2013.

For H1 2013, The Geely Auto-owned manufacturer made a loss of SEK577m, down from a profit of SEK349m in H1 2012.

Despite this, president and chief executive officer of Volvo, Håkan Samuelsson, said: "The result is as expected and in line
with the challenging targets we have set ourselves."

With sales picking up in August, the manufacturer said it was expecting higher sales volumes and margins in H2.

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Samuelsson added: "We have realistic possibilities in achieving our objectives for 2013: sales on par with last year, reaching break-even and maintaining the pace of implementation of our long-term transformation programme."

Volvo’s best-selling model in August was the XC60, with 7,646 sold, followed by the Volvo V40 (including the Cross Country version), at 6,022 cars sold, meaning the two models accounted for more than half of Volvo’s sales in the month.

richard.brown@timetric.com