Volkswagen has out shined Toyota Motors and it has become the world’s largest auto manufacturer of automobiles in terms of deliveries in the first half of this year. This has enabled the company occupy the top position across the world in sales three years in advance of its target.
On Tuesday, Toyota announced that it sold 5.02 million units of vehicles in the first six months of 2015. Volkswagen announced earlier this month that its sales figure is 5.04 million taking it ahead of Toyota.
The deliveries of Toyota declined by 1.5 percent while that of Volkswagen dropped by 0.5 percent. The German based manufacturer boosted its sales in its local market and in the Western Europe by over six percent in the last five and a half years. This move softened the blow from the slowdown in the Chinese automobile market that was the biggest one for Volkswagen.
In order to achieve the goal of emerging as the largest auto maker in the world that was set in 2007, Volkswagen should withstand the fall in demand that was created by the volatile Chinese stock market and the competition from the cheap SUV models launched by the Chinese brands.
The passenger vehicle sales in the Chinese market fell for the very first time in over two years in the month of June as the economic growth of the country slowed down and the stock market created a dent in the consumer sentiment. The global auto manufactures will make fewer vehicles in China this year as there is a slow demand. Toyota cashed the marker trend with 42 percent gain in this month and boosted its sales by 10 percent to 512,800 vehicles in the first half of this year.
Volkswagen deliveries in the first half of this year in China witnessed a drop by 3.9 percent to 1.74 million units. On the other hand, in Europe, the stretch of economic growth for the 19 countries using euro as their currency, the automobile sales has been more solid helping Volkswagen dominate the market. In Europe, Toyota registrations reached its highest of 5.7 percent in the same period. Both the companies have faced struggle in the first half in Japan as the demand in the region is weak since the rise in sales tax in the last year.
