Volkswagen increased sales at its core passenger-car brand by 4 percent in July as higher deliveries in western Europe and China offset declines in the United States and Brazil.

Global sales of VW brand cars and SUVs rose to 491,600 last month, compared with 472,800 a year ago, the Wolfsburg-based automaker said Tuesday. Seven-month sales were up 4 percent to 3.56 million vehicles.

Western European sales rose 2 percent to 65,900 vehicles last month. Through July VW brand’s western European volume is up 5 percent to 517,2000.

In China, July sales increased 11 percent to 210,000 vehicles while seven-month volume in VW brand’s largest single market grew 18 percent to 1.6 million.

VW brand’s U.S. struggles continued as its July sales dipped 15 percent to 30,600 pushing its seven-month volume down 14 percent to 209,700.

In Brazil, the VW brand’s July sales slid 4 percent to 46,100 units. The automaker’s seven-month volume in the country was down 15 percent to 301,800.

VW Group sales boss Christian Klingler said in the statement that the automaker is pleased with the way company’s core brand has started the second half of the year, “but we are still facing challenging market developments in some sales regions.”