Europe's biggest carmaker Volkswagen AG set a new sales record in 2009 despite the crisis that engulfed the global car industry, the German-based company said Monday, dpa reported.
VW delivered a total of 6.29 million vehicles in 2009, which represented a rise of 1.1 per cent over deliveries in 2008. Sales were buoyed by government auto scrapping schemes aimed at encouraging car owners to update to models with better environmental features.
At the same time, however, the global passenger car market contracted by over 6 per cent as the steepest economic downturn since the Great Depression hit the car industry.
The rise in VW sales is likely to help the auto group meet its ambitious goal of overtaking Japan's Toyota as the world's top carmaker.
But VW said during last year its share of the world passenger car market rose to 11.4 per cent from 10.3 per cent in 2008.
Earlier in the say, VW's luxury offshoot Audi said full-year car sales slumped by 5.4 per cent to 949,700 units from the record it hit in 2008. Unlike carmakers such as VW, premium auto groups have largely failed to benefit from the so-called cash-for-clunkers schemes.