Toyota regains top spot as world's largest automaker from Volkswagen
After briefly聽聽this summer, Volkswagen has now lost the crown to perennial leader Toyota which looks set to remain the world鈥檚 largest automaker by sales鈥攁nd likely profits, too鈥攊n 2015. Toyota said it sold 7.49 million聽聽through September, while for the same period VW reported only 7.43 million sales. Incidentally, both figures are down 1.5 percent on the automakers鈥� respective results from one year ago.
Unfortunately for VW, the automaker鈥檚 emissions cheating scandal has forced it to suspend sales of several key vehicles. According to聽, these latest results include less than two weeks of VW鈥檚 stop-sale order of its diesel models affected by the scandal, so we鈥檙e likely to see the German automaker鈥檚 results impacted more harshly in the fourth quarter. It may even lead to General Motors Company [NYSE:GM], which sold 7.2 million vehicles through September, surpassing VW in global sales this year.
All three automakers face headwinds as we approach the end of the year. While an area of rapid growth for several years, demand for聽聽in China has slowed and the trend is likely to stay that way for some time. To help spur sales, the government last month cut a purchase tax on small cars (those with engines smaller than 1.6 liters) from 10 percent to 5 percent. These models represent about 60 percent of new聽sales in China.
