Volvo Cars sold about 45,294 vehicles worldwide in October, between 21% and 24% fewer than a year earlier, while fully electric cars rose to a 38.9% share of its sales.
The carmaker no longer publishes single months, and the release it issued on Wednesday covered August to October as one block, with sales down 16% at 141,656.
That three-month total blends October with a stronger September. On its own, October was 21% below September’s 57,291, and the year-on-year fall was deeper than the 16% the window shows.
Volvo has reported sales only in rolling three-month windows since February, saying the format “provides a more accurate and meaningful view of the company’s sales performance over time.” Its releases contain no monthly breakdown.
The single months can be recovered. Starting from the November and December 2025 totals Volvo published before the change, each new window yields the next month, and every window released this year reproduces exactly from the resulting series.
Measured against the 60,455 cars Volvo originally reported for October 2025, October sales fell 25%, or 15,161 vehicles. On that basis, it would be the steepest year-on-year fall of any month in 2026, ahead of February’s 22% and August’s 19%.
The like-for-like fall is smaller. Volvo has since lowered its 2025 base, including a correction of 1,899 cars to the third quarter of 2025 after a China reporting error, and the August-to-October 2025 total it now uses is 2,729 below the sum of the monthly figures it published at the time.
Depending on how that revision falls across the three months, October’s decline is between about 21% and 24%. That range overlaps February’s fall, so October cannot be confirmed as the year’s steepest on a like-for-like basis.
On the originally reported figures, Volvo’s sales have fallen year on year in eight of the first 10 months of 2026. Only March and June were higher, by about 1% and 2%.
October’s Mix
Fully electric cars made up 17,603 of October’s sales, 26% more than the 13,950 Volvo reported for October 2025 and the second-highest monthly total of the year, after September’s 19,203.
Their 38.9% share was the highest of any month since at least January 2025, up from 33.5% in September and 23.1% in October 2025.
Plug-in hybrids fell to about 8,484 from 15,505 a year earlier, down 45%, and close to August’s 8,451, the lowest month of the year.
Mild hybrids and combustion cars fell to about 19,207 from 31,000. That left them only 1,604 units ahead of fully electric cars, the narrowest gap of any month since at least January 2025.
The Three-Month Window
Across August to October, fully electric sales rose 27% to 48,660, Volvo said. They made up 34% of all cars it sold, up from 32% in the third quarter and 23% a year earlier.
The 16% decline was steeper than the 7.4% drop in the three months to August and the 10.7% fall in the third quarter.
Plug-in hybrid sales fell 30% to 28,857, or 20% of the total, leaving electrified models, which combine the two, down 3% at 77,517. Electrified cars accounted for 55% of the total.
Mild hybrids and combustion cars fell 28% to 64,139 from 89,282.
That loss of 25,143 units was larger than the company’s entire decline of 27,311, while fully electric volumes added 10,269.
China and the US
Volvo said the period reflected “challenging market conditions in China, as increased competitive pressure from local players and a weak macroeconomic environment continue to impact demand.”
“In China, we are adapting to lower demand and focusing on stabilising the business rather than chasing volumes,” Chief Commercial Officer Erik Severinson said.
In the US, Volvo said market conditions “remain tough,” with “record-low consumer sentiment and the removal of incentives on electric and plug-in hybrid cars” weighing on demand.
“In the US, we are focusing on our updated mild- and plug-in hybrid portfolio,” Severinson said.
The release gave no regional volumes. In the third quarter, Volvo’s sales in Greater China fell 40.6% to 20,284 and in the Americas 14% to 30,777, while Europe and the rest of the world rose 2% to 90,548.
Fully electric sales in Europe and the rest of the world rose 51% in that quarter to 40,466, or 90% of Volvo’s global fully electric total.
EX60 Ramp-Up
Europe was again the bright spot. “In Europe, momentum towards electrification continued to accelerate, driving strong demand for Volvo Cars’ fully electric models,” the company said.
“In Europe, underlying demand for our fully electric cars remains strong, particularly for the EX60, with orders already exceeding 50,000 cars,” Severinson said.
“Deliveries are currently impacted by the ongoing production ramp-up, but we are steadily improving built volumes,” he added.
Volvo said in its third-quarter report that the EX60 ramp-up was slower than planned because of the new cell-to-body technology used in the electric SUV.
A Difficult Quarter
The figures follow a third quarter in which Volvo swung to an operating loss of SEK 5.6 billion ($575 million) from a profit of SEK 6.4 billion, on revenue that fell to SEK 66.9 billion ($6.87 billion) from SEK 86.4 billion.
Chief Executive Officer Håkan Samuelsson said then that the company needed to “reinforce our turnaround plan with additional decisive actions.” Volvo announced about 2,500 further job cuts, roughly 2,000 of them in Sweden, and SEK 5 billion ($513 million) in additional savings.
Its shares fell 30% to a record low on October 23.
Volvo had already withdrawn its 2026 volume and cash flow outlook on October 2, two weeks after setting out a long-term plan to unveil 13 new models by 2030. In September, it named Škoda chief Klaus Zellmer as its next Chief Executive Officer, to take over no later than October 1, 2027.
Volvo’s B shares were up 2% at SEK 11.73 ($1.20) in Stockholm on Wednesday afternoon, about 22% above their 52-week low.
2026 So Far
Volvo has sold about 511,720 vehicles in the first ten months of 2026, based on the reconstructed series, 11% fewer than the 574,749 it reported for the same months of 2025.
Fully electric sales over the period total about 142,165, up 19%, or 27.8% of all sales.
To match its 2025 total of 710,042, Volvo would need to sell 198,322 cars in November and December. It sold 135,293 in those two months last year.
