Volkswagen posted a 5.1% year on year fall of global car sales in the first half of 2009 but June volume rose 6%, CEO Martin Winterkorn said at a conference in Germany.

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Winterkorn did not mention specific numbers but Financial Times Deutschland calculated about 3.1m and said VW beat the worldwide market, which shrank by 18% in the first six months of 2009.


However, Winterkorn expects the market in 2009 to shrink by 12m motor vehicles sold to 47m units compared with 2007, the year before the crisis.


VW’s CEO hopes the company will account for up to 1.5% of the world’s electric car market by 2020. He talked of the potential of electric vehicles but added there were many issues the industry has to deal with, such as batteries, infrastructure and price.

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