Porsche revs up sales

Porsche sales jumped by a staggering 21.2 percent in March year-on-year, the German luxury carmaker announced on Thursday. The producer of the iconic 911 sports vehicle reported that worldwide deliveries rose to 12,094 units last month.

"Porsche is able to respond to the market situations in all regions and leverage growth potential," Bernhard Maier, the head of sales and marketing, said in a statement.

In the first three month of the current year, the automaker posted a sales increase of 15 percent, with 31,000 units leaving showrooms around the globe. Year-on-year, Porsche in March logged a 63.3 percent gain in deliveries to China, the world's biggest car market, where it sold 2,572 vehicles.

New brands to keep fire burning

Like its major rivals in the German premium car segment - BMW, Mercedes and Audi - Porsche has been enjoying soaring sales particularly in emerging markets. Deliveries in the Asia-Pacific region were up 39 percent in March, compared with the same month last year.

But the Stuttgart-based carmaker also posted a 29.7 percent rise in sales in Europe. Only supplies to the United States dropped by 4.9 percent last month, indicating that customers there were not happy about recent changes to Porsche's 911.

But the company is hoping to improve sales in that region and elsewhere by introducing new products. "We are igniting the next stage of our model firework by launching the new Boxster and Boxster S brands, Maier said.

hg/sms (Reuters, dpa, dapd)