Wolfsburg - For the first time ever, Volkswagen has broken through the 10 million annual sales mark.
The German car giant said it sold 10.14 million vehicles across the globe in 2014, and that’s a 4.2 per cent increase over 2013. The figures are a combined total of VW's palette of 12 brands, with hundreds of models ranging from the smallest Skoda Citigo to the largest Scania truck.
The group’s biggest regional gain was in Asia, where sales were up 11.3 per cent, topping 4 million vehicles for the first time. Most of those sales - 3.7 million - were in China, the company said.
Things were not so rosy in the Americas, where US sales declined by 2 percent, while the South American operation dropped by a whopping 19.8 percent. That was after coming close to 1 million sales in 2013.
It's not yet clear if VW outsold General Motors in 2014. GM is expected to announce its global sales on Wednesday. Both VW and GM are expected to be behind Toyota, which has only announced global sales through the first nine months of 2014.
Reaching a double-digit million-vehicle figure means VW reached the first goal of its 2018 strategy. It also said it was on track to meet other goals it wants to reach by 2018, including becoming the world's-largest car company.
Dpa & IOL