Like GM and Toyota (TM) before it, VW aims to be the largest car company in the world within a few years with a huge lead over its competition.
In the meantime, VW said that in the fourth quarter of 2009 net income dropped 73% from the year-earlier period to 257 million euros ($350.4 million). Revenue fell 1.2% to 28.03 billion euros. That means its plan for global domination is off to a rough start.
VW said it delivered 6.3 million vehicles in 2009, about flat with the prior year. According to MarketWatch, “Under its 2018 strategy, Volkswagen aims to increase the number of vehicles sold to around 8 million in the medium term and to more than 10 million by 2018.”
VW management seems to have forgotten the business school maxim “under-promise and over-deliver”. If the Toyota recall debacle taught the auto industry anything, it should be that a lead can be fleeting.
VW has one other hurdle to selling 10 million cars and moving into first place in global market share–it sells almost no vehicles in the United States.
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