Volkswagen Group has edged Toyota to claim top spot in global vehicle sales in 2016. It takes the crown away from Toyota and comes in spite of VW’s ongoing ‘dieselgate’ crisis.

Toyota has announced that it sold 10.175m vehicles worldwide last year, up 0.2% but short of the 10.31m vehicles sold by VW Group in 2016.

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The result reflects VW’s industrial strength (12 brands) and the importance of the Chinese market – where VW is well positioned with its big JVs and Toyota is less strong.

Volkswagen Group’s 10.31m total was a gain of 3.8% on the previous year, with China up a staggering 12.2% to 3.98m units.

VW Group CEO Matthias Müller stressed the stabilisation for the group last year, in spite of the challenges faced. “2016 was a very challenging year for us,” he said. “We made strides in resolving and overcoming the diesel crisis and at the same time initiated a fundamental change process with ‘Together – Strategy 2025’ to get Volkswagen ready for the future of mobility. Nonetheless, we managed to stabilize operating business in difficult conditions: the fact that we handed over more than 10 million vehicles to customers last year bolsters the Group and its brands as we head for the future.”

Full-year deliveries by the Volkswagen Group brands in Europe in 2016 totalled 4.2m units (+4%).

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Full-year deliveries for VW Group in North America reached 939,100 units (+0.8%; but with US down 2.2% at 591,600 sales).

Some 4.3m new vehicles (+9.7%) were delivered in the Asia-Pacific region in 2016, of which just under 4m were for China (+12.2%).

“In 2017 we will be intensifying our efforts in the major technological fields of the future, in e-mobility, autonomous vehicles, the digitalization of our products and our company,” said Müller. “At the same time, though, we will not be neglecting today’s core business. Our group brands will be putting almost 60 new vehicles on the road for their customers during the coming year.”

Toyota has said in the past that it is not concerned with being the world’s best-selling carmaker, preferring to focus on profits and making high quality products.

“At Toyota, we are not focused on chasing volume. We believe that our sales volume is just the result of our focus on making ever-better cars and providing better customer experiences,” Toyota said in a statement.

Volkswagen has said in the past that it aims to be the world’s largest vehicle makers, but played that goal down after the dieselgate crisis broke in 2015.