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10/11/2009
German car giant Volkswagen-Porsche has overtaken Toyota to become the world's largest car manufacturer, latest estimates suggest.
The European maker produced 4.4 million vehicles in the first nine months of 2009, compared to Toyota's four million, according to analysts IHS Global Insight.
It is thought that the group's strong performance is in part due to government stimuli in several of its key markets, such as the UK's recently-extended scrappage scheme. A similar system was used in Germany, while China cut sales taxes and offered subsidies to buyers.
At the same time Toyota - which only became the world's biggest carmaker in 2008 - almost halved its output in the first quarter of 2009 in response to uncertain economic signals.
"That extremely hard brake has been keeping Toyota behind Volkswagen by quite a margin," said an IHS Global Insight director, Christoph Stürmer.
"Due to government incentives, Volkswagen was not forced to decelerate so hard."
The Volkswagen group, which is to merge with Porsche and which also includes the Audi, Seat, Skoda, Lamborghini, Bentley and Bugatti brands, is the largest foreign-owned car maker in China, accounting for about 18% of the country's car sales. In July it sold 128,000 cars in China, making up nearly a quarter of its global sales for that month.
Last week, Toyota announced a surprise return to profit following three successive quarters of losses.
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