January 13, 2020 07:47 AM

Porsche defies industry gloom with 10% rise in 2019 sales

Christoph Rauwald

Bloomberg

Porsche will rollout the Taycan EV this year, which will challenge Tesla's Model S.

FRANKFURT -- Porsche shrugged off a widespread industry slowdown, reporting record deliveries for last year and predicting that its first all-electric model, the Taycan, will foster further growth in 2020.

Global deliveries rose 10 percent to 280,800 cars in 2019, driven mainly by strong consumer appetite for the Macan and Cayenne SUVs, Porsche said Monday in a statement.

"We're optimistic that we can sustain the high demand in 2020," sales chief Detlev von Platen said in the statement.

Sales momentum should benefit from "the introduction of some new models and full order books for the Taycan," he said.

The most profitable division of Volkswagen Group, the world's largest automaker, is entering a new era with this year's rollout of the Taycan four-door sedan, which challenges Tesla's Model S.

Porsche's cachet has been shaped for decades by fast sports cars with roaring combustion engines, and success of the costly expansion into electric cars is mission-critical for the automaker amid stricter emission regulations in key markets.

Sales rose 8 percent last year in both China and the U.S., Porsche's two largest markets.

Porsche sold 86,752 cars in China, where luxury cars have been less affected by the waning demand hurting the overall market, and 61,568 cars in the U.S.

In Germany, sales advanced 15 percent to 31,618 vehicles.