Volkswagen continues to get hit as a direct fallout from its ongoing emissions scandal.
Bloomberg is reporting that the embattled automaker's European market share has continued to slide for a fifth consecutive month, with deliveries dipping in Germany and the United Kingdom for January.
What's worse, while VW's brand fell by four percent to less than 128,350 vehicles registered in Europe for January, competitors like Fiat Chrysler experienced a surge of sales last month.
Bloomberg reports that Fiat Chrysler's European sales rose 15 percent last month to snatch hold of the market away from Volkswagen. The saving grace for VW's month was that its group sales — with owned brands Audi and BMW — had an uptick of one percent, largely due to the latter two companies experiencing gains, and that the automaker's European car demand actually rose by 6.3 percent.
That gives VW hope that the worst days of its emissions scandal are behind it.
"The impact from the diesel scandal does not seem overly concerning," Arndt Ellinghorst, an analyst with Evercore ISI, told Bloomberg, adding that the "negative news headlines" seem to be over.
That isn't stopping competitors from trying to kick the brand while it's down and attempt to emerge from the trudge of its messy emissions crisis.
Fiat dealers in Germany are offering rebates of nearly 14.5 percent off its models' sticker prices, according to Bloomberg, hitting VW where it hurts most — at home. Specifically, the same news agency adds that VW sales dropped over January in Germany by 8.8 percent and by 14 percent in the UK.
This news comes two weeks after Volkswagen began its massive recall to bring 8.5 million compromised diesel vehicles in Europe to comply with emissions regulations. The vehicles will be recalled in groups, with some requiring simple software updates and others needing a flow transformer device installed to ensure that emissions regulations are maintained.
While the company can at least take solace in knowing that its recall is underway in Europe, the United States is another issue. Just last month, the latter's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and California Air Resources Board (CARB) rejected VW's proposed fix for the nearly 600,000 compromised vehicles in the U.S.
VW has yet to have be given the green light over a proposal that would bring affected vehicles up to date.
