Volvo Cars' sales of fully electric vehicles jump in October

STOCKHOLM – Volvo Cars’ sales in October grew 10% from a year earlier to 59,861 cars as fully electric car sales jumped but hybrid models fell, the Sweden-based group said on Friday.

Volvo Cars said in a statement sales of fully electric cars rose 29% to account for 18% of all its cars sold in the month. Sales of hybrid cars, however, fell 8%. In total, all recharge models were up 7% to account for 36% of total sales.

Shares in the group, which is majority-owned by China’s Geely Holding, were up 6% in morning trade, taking the year-to-date drop to 12%.

CEO Jim Rowan last week said he saw healthy demand for Volvo cars and widening profit margins for its battery electric vehicles (BEV) this quarter, against the third, as the group posted third-quarter profits that lagged estimates.

Rivals such as General Motors, Ford, Tesla and Volkswagen have earlier warned that demand for EVs was not developing as expected.

Volvo Cars said on Friday that sales in the biggest market Europe were up 13% in October. Sales in the U.S. were up 19% while, in China, they were flat.

(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom, Editing by Terje Solsvik and Jacqueline Wong)