Despite the ongoing Dieselgate emission scandal, Volkswagen has nudged ahead of Toyota to take the crown of the world’s largest automaker, latest financial filings by both companies revealed. In the first 6 months of 2016 (H1), Volkswagen delivered 5.12 million vehicles compared to Toyota’s 4.99 million vehicles in the same period. These results also reflect the negligible effect of the German company’s diesel emission scandal, which rocked the company and its management, when announced last year.
While Toyota reported a sales decline of 0.6% for H1, 2016, Volkswagen reported an increase of 1.5% despite weakening US sales. These numbers include Volkswagen Group and all other brands it owns. Last year too,Volkswagen was the global leader in the first 6 months but later lost the annual title to Toyota as the Japanese automaker regained the lead in the next 6 months. It’ll be interesting to see if Volkswagen can hold on to the title this year.
Giving an outlook, CEO Matthias Müller said, “We will work hard on our earnings power to manage the future investments needed to transform our core automotive business and build an innovative business unit for mobility services. One pillar of Strategy 2025 is therefore that all brands and business areas contribute to increasing efficiency at every link in the value chain.”
