According to the Financial Times, Volkswagen will soon become the world’s biggest carmaker, probably by the end of this year. If confirmed, the achievement will be attained seven years earlier than what the VW management would have expected: when in 2008 VW’s chief executive Martin Winterkorn announced plans to overtake Toyota by 2018, few people took it seriously as at that time the group was selling 3 millions fewer cars than its Japanese rival, but now that goal is within reach.
Toyota - that held the industry’s top spot for years - is still suffering backlash of the earthquake that hit Japan in March as many of its suppliers are still recovering from the consequences of that tragedy. Obviously, this situation led to a slowdown in the production that - combined with VW’s relentless growth across the world - will allow the German group to become the world’s new number one in the automotive industry in terms of both sales and production.
Leading consultancies JD Power, IHS Automotive and PwC Autofacts forecast that by the end of 2011 VW will have sold 7.8m vehicles (10.5% share of the global market), GM will be second with 7.2m, Renault and Nissan will follow with combined sales of 6.8m, and Toyota will end up in fourth place with 6.7m units sold.
No comments:
Post a Comment