Volkswagen cuts 2012 vehicles sales

German carmaker Volkswagen has cut its expectations for full-year sales by 300,000 vehicles, spooked by the stubbornly weak European economy, German daily Handelsblatt has reported. The paper cited company sources as saying that Volkswagen has reduced its expectations for sales in Europe alone by 250,000 vehicles. Volkswagen, Europe’s largest carmaker, said last month that its group deliveries rose by 9.1 percent in the first eight months of 2012, to 5.19 million euros ($6.56 million), but warned that the economic situation in Western Europe was still tense. On Sunday, Volkswagen had denied a German magazine report that it was bracing for a slump in the economy and had told suppliers it was considering cutting production by 10 percent in the European autumn. A spokesman said at the time that the situation in some markets was “tense” and the coming months would be “significantly more difficult and demanding”. But the Volkswagen spokesman said on Friday that the company was still doing well. In the second quarter through June, Volkswagen had suffered a slowdown in underlying profit growth, partly because Europe’s deepening debt crisis weighed on its earnings.