TOKYO/FRANKFURT (Reuters) -- Volkswagen's global vehicle sales fell by 11.4% in the first quarter but its market share gains may have let it overtake Japan's Toyota Motor as the world's top-selling automaker.
Government incentives in key markets have fueled demand for the German group's vehicles, limiting its sales decline even as the global market shrank by more than a fifth.
VW's first-quarter group sales of 1.39 million vehicles - excluding truckmaker Scania but including VW trucks and buses for two months - gave it a global market share of 11%, up from 9.7% a year earlier, it said in a statement.
Toyota has given no forecast for retail sales, but its latest estimate for shipments for the 2009 first quarter is 1.23 million vehicles, down 47% from a year earlier.
Volkswagen - with its nine car and truck brands including Audi, Skoda, Seat and Scania - has a goal of overtaking Toyota and General Motors Corp. to be the world's No.1 seller by 2018 - a target that was initially met with skepticism.
But a deepening recession and credit crisis have crippled demand in Toyota's top markets, with U.S. sales falling 38% and Japan sliding 24% in January-March.
Volkswagen, meanwhile, is benefiting from government stimulus plans for the car industry that have boosted sales in Germany, China and Brazil, which together accounted for 44% of group sales last year, making it more likely that it beat Toyota or at least came close.
In Germany, new registrations of Volkswagen group brands rose 19% in the first quarter to about 282,000. Toyota sales grew 43% but its market share is just 4.4% whereas about every third new car sold in Germany came from the Wolfsburg-based manufacturer.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/17/autos/Toyota_VW.reut/
