The VW Group managed to narrowly out-sell Stellantis in Europe throughout 2021, retaining its title as the region’s best-selling automaker.
The German car manufacturer sold a total of 3,158,559 vehicles throughout Europe last year. This was slightly more than the 3,081,590 sales for Stellantis that have been reported by analytics provider Dataforce. Countries considered as part of Europe in these sales results consist of the 27 European Union nations, as well as the UK, Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland.
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This isn’t the first time that the VW Group has narrowly come out on top of Stellantis. In 2020, the company sold 3,256,865 vehicles compared to the 3,058,064 reported by Stellantis. Interestingly, Auto News notes that had Stellantis existed in 2019, it would have outsold the VW Group with 4,174,868 sales compared to 4,119,887.
There is, however, one segment of the market where Stellantis trumped VW. During 2021, the company sold 643,793 light commercial vehicles, significantly more than the 208,303 sold by the VW Group. VW Group’s sales of passenger cars, on the other hand, were particularly strong with 2,950,256 units sold compared with the 2,437,979 of Stellantis.
The third best-selling automaker in Europe last year was the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance with 1,788,266 units. It was followed by Hyundai and Kia with 1,020,686 combined sales. Other top sellers included Ford, Daimler, BMW, and Toyota, in that order.
All car manufacturers were impacted by parts shortages throughout 2021, in particular semiconductors, impacting sales and delivery figures across the industry. The VW Group was hit particularly hard with its sales falling to their lowest level in 10 years.
