German carmaker Volkswagen's global car sales were almost flat in August and the company pointed to difficult conditions in Europe, one of its core markets.

Global deliveries rose just 0.1 per cent last month to 720,400 cars, which compared with a rise of 3.2 per cent in July. This makes August the weakest sales month in 2.5 years for the German company, which also includes luxury division Audi and sports carmaker Porsche.

The slowdown partly reflected the impact of a big hailstorm in July, which damaged up to 17,000 new cars at VW's Wolfsburg base. Deliveries had to be delayed while the cars were repaired.

Global sales in the eight months to August were up 4.5 per cent to 6.17 million. In Europe, sales dropped 3.3 per cent in the year-to-date period. Europe's largest carmaker aims to boost sales to 9.5 million cars this year, up from 9.3 million in 2012.-Reuters