Volvo Cars’ (VOLCARb.ST) sales increased 10 per cent to 53,402 cars in January from a year earlier, helped by a 40 per cent jump for fully electric models in Europe, the Sweden-based group said on Monday.

Volvo Cars, which is majority-owned by China’s Geely Holding (0175.HK), said in a statement sales of fully electric cars were in all up 17 per cent, to account for 17 per cent of total sales. In China and the United States, they were down.

All recharge models, also including those not fully electric, shrank 3 per cent in total.

Shares in the company were down 1 per cent in early trade.

Sales in Europe, the group’s biggest market, were up 8 per cent in total while in the United States they were unchanged. In China, they were up 36 per cent.