This news might come as a surprise to many. Volkswagen Group emerged as the largest car manufacturer for the first half of this year, by manufacturing 5.2 million cars and selling 5.1 million cars.
They beat former global leader Toyota, who came in a close second. The Japanese company manufactured and sold 5 million and 4.9 million cars respectively. Coming in as the world’s third best-selling automaker is General Motors who sold 4.76 million cars in the same period.
Despite being plagued by the ongoing dieselgate scandal, VW AG recorded positive sales growth in key markets of China (á 6.8%) and Europe (á 3.8%). Yet, the group saw a dip in operating profit, down from €7b (approximately RM31.5b) in the first half of 2015 to €5.3b (RM23.8b) in the same period this year. This is largely because of the scandal which cost VW AG €2.2b (RM9.9b) in expense. The “special items”, according to VW AG, are mainly related to the legal issues in North America pertaining to the crisis.
However, VW AG is positive on the overall outlook for 2016 as Group CFO Frank Witter said “We produced a solid result in difficult conditions, this shows that the Volkswagen Group has high earnings power. But it will require continued hard work to absorb the significant impact from the diesel issue.”
