Volkswagen recorded a decline in sales in January.
According to information from Friday, the Wolfsburg-based group sold a total of 699,500 vehicles, which is 15.2 percent less than a year ago.
In Central Europe, South America and China in particular, sales fell by 18.3 percent to 342,500 cars in the most important individual market.
For Western Europe - the second most important market - VW reported a decline of 3.9 percent to 192,500 cars.
Among the different brands, the cars in the volume segment in particular had to lose feathers: the core brand VW sold 17.2 percent less, Skoda lost 18.5 percent, and Seat even more than a quarter.
The sports car manufacturer Porsche, on the other hand, was able to keep its sales almost at the previous year's level with a minus of 0.5 percent.
The automotive industry is currently suffering from the continuing shortage of semiconductors.
Recently, VW announced that it would eliminate almost all night shifts there from Easter due to the lack of chips and the dramatically weak utilization of the Wolfsburg main plant.