Volkswagen Supplants Toyota, Now no. 1 Car Maker in the World

[creanium]

VW passes Toyota as world's leading car maker

An article was published in the German magazine Spiegel Online, citing findings by market researchers, that places Volkswagen ahead of Toyota as the world's number 1 car maker based on sales. Together with Porsche, the Volkswagen Group has produced 4.4 million vehicles globally in the first nine months of 2009, outpacing Toyota's 4 million vehicles, according to to the Global Insight Institute.

This is a significant event in that past projections didn't have Volkswagen outproducing Toyota until 2018.

Toyota's production numbers fell mainly thanks to the global economic downturn, but remained ahead of Ford's 3.7 million vehicles produced globally. Meanwhile, embattled car maker General Motors dropped to fourth place with 3.6 million vehicles produced globally this year.

This news comes even as Volkswagen had recently suffered sharp declines in profits. In the third quarter of 2009, Volkswagen's profits dropped from 1.16 billion Euro, down to €161 million; and net sales dropped ten percent to almost €26 billion.

Toyota, once a model for the entire auto industry for its high profitability, announced on Thursday that the company expects to finish this year with a billion-dollar loss.

[karmakid]

Not suprises at all, as they've been climbing the ranks as the rest fall. Wonder how much of that boost was on part of purchasing Porsche, and how different it may have been if Porsche had bought vw.

[mike]

Its because AG has been on a mad buying spree the last few years. Those numbers are fudged. Ford, GM, and Toyota sell hundreds of thousands of cars to rental fleets every year............... take that out, and lets see where the chips fall.

[Dieselhound]

Yeah but the Sheiks in the UAE don't buy Ford, GM or Toyota products..... They buy Audi Buggati Lamborghini Porsche and VW.

[bugzy]

[creanium]

Its because AG has been on a mad buying spree the last few years. Those numbers are fudged. Ford, GM, and Toyota sell hundreds of thousands of cars to rental fleets every year............... take that out, and lets see where the chips fall.

Ford, GM and Chrysler have actually been pulling back on their fleet sales in the last 18-24 months because it was hurting their resale values. The used car market was flooded with cheap, relatively low-mileage former fleet cars.

It's one of the reasons why you're seeing more and more Kias and Hyundais in rental fleets, they came in and started selling cars to the rental companies. It's win-win for them as fleets are buying their cars, and more and more people are being exposed to Kias and Hyundais as they rent cars.

That's not to say GM/Chrysler/Ford don't sell to fleets still, they do, they've just been trying to reduce the piece of the pie that fleet sales occupy.

[GregL]