Volkswagen, Steady Through the Crisis

German group Volkswagen seems to have gotten the hang of the crisis and, as its sales and marketing vice president, Detlef Wittig says, steers "a steady course through the crisis". The group posted an 11.9 percent increase in sales in September and an 11.7 percent market share for the nine months of the year.

"We are continuing to steer a steady course through the crisis and are developing better than the competition. We have maintained our position as market leader in the important core markets of China, Brazil and Germany. At the same time we are well placed on emerging growth markets such as Russia and India and have strengthened our market position," the vice president said in a release.

The group's Passenger Cars division managed to sell 397,100 vehicles in September, up 22 percent from the same month in 2008. This means that since the beginning of the year, the group delivered 3.02 million cars, amazingly 7.5 percent more than in 2008.

The achievement was made possible thanks to the rapid development in emerging countries. China already managed to sell more in the nine months of 2009 than in the entire past year (1.06 million vehicles).

Europe and North America were the black sheep of the family, registering 15 and 8.6 percent decreases, respectively. North America was saved by Canada, who managed to increase sales by 5.1 percent.

South America may follow China's lead in the coming year, with Brazil posting a 5.6 percent increase, a great achievement giving the bleak prospects in the country earlier this year. Overall, South America is almost level with last year's performances, posting a 0.9 percent decrease.