Volkswagen Group’s deliveries increased 0.9 percent to a record 10.83 million in 2018, the German company stated on Friday, putting it neck-and-neck with Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi in the race to be the globe’s biggest vehicle manufacturer.
Rivals Toyota Motor and Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi have not released registration figures for the last year, but the Franco-Japanese alliance sold 10.6 million vehicles in 2017 and gained sales of 5.54 million in the first half of 2018.
Toyota last month released a forecast for overall global sales of 10.55 million vehicles last year, but has yet to verify official numbers.
“If we assume that the 10.8 million sales VW have reported is confirmed, it is very likely to be enough to place Volkswagen Group in the number one spot,” stated David Oakley, an analyst at LMC Automotive.
That would be the fifth consecutive year Volkswagen Group has held the spot, Oakley stated, adding it was still early to stated if Toyota or Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi would be in second place, also due to registration figures that have not yet been published for all markets.
Volkswagen Group’s figures include sales of light vehicles and trucks. Measured by passenger cars alone, registrations for 2018 would have accounted for 10.1 million, it stated.
“If we looked at passenger cars only, the picture would be roughly similar. Volkswagen Group would still be ahead, although by a larger margin, as it is relatively less reliant on light commercial vehicles than the other two,” Oakley stated.
Only about 4 percent of Volkswagen Group’s sales were light commercial vehicles in last year compared with 12 to 15 percent for Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi and Toyota Group, as per LMC.
