Volkswagen Saw, Came, And Conquered: Takes Global Sales Crown Two Years Ahead Of Schedule

Toyota Motor Corp. lost its title as the world's best-selling automaker to Volkswagen Group, ending the Japanese company's four-year reign, as demand for its flagship Camry sedan waned in the U.S. and sales in China expanded at a slower pace than the overall market.

Toyota's global sales, including its Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino brands, rose 0.2 percent to 10.2 million vehicles in 2016, the Japanese automaker said on Monday. That fell short of VW Group's record 10.3 million cars, trucks and buses, a 3.8 percent gain.

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knowitall1985 - 1/30/2017 10:48:18 AM

+2 Boost

So what!! It will go back and forth. 100k cars when your selling 10 million is nothing....

PUGPROUD - 1/30/2017 11:02:32 AM

+2 Boost

Sales figures can be inflated by use of large discounts.

bw5011 - 1/31/2017 3:10:50 PM

+1 Boost

That's not true, a sale is a sale.. Everybody discounts cars.. When they drive off the lot, it's a sale. Dealerships are in the business of making money, so are the manufacturers.

TheSteve - 1/30/2017 12:29:06 PM

+3 Boost

My understanding is that VW counts "sales" differently than Toyota. In a highly simplified explanation, VW counts "shipped by VW factory to a VW dealer for any purpose (including dealer demo, dealer inventory, etc.)" as a sale, whereas Toyota counts a vehicle sold to the end-consumer -- that being the person who buys from a Toyota dealership -- to be the sale.

This is widely understood in the auto-industry, and it's one of the "questionable" points as to the "worthiness" of VW's new "We're Number One" crown.

800over - 1/30/2017 12:49:35 PM

+3 Boost

They both sold 10 million cars....no big deal either way. If one of them really wanted the crown they could easily buy up other manufactures to pad their numbers.

monster - 1/30/2017 4:35:48 PM

+1 Boost

Well Toyota does sell branded cars to some countries without a Toyota logo on them and they don't include it in their total sales number. Those easy account to more than 200k cars.

MrEE - 1/30/2017 5:14:28 PM

+1 Boost

Surprising VW Diesel-gate did not hurt European sales like it did US sales and tip numbers down.

MDarringer - 1/30/2017 8:19:14 PM

-1 Boost

Jingoists don't worry about truth.

w222 - 1/31/2017 4:09:06 PM

+2 Boost

wonder how much of that accounting is inflated. I mean they pretty much committed every fraud out there.