Dec 26 2015

Toyota Motor Corp sold more cars than Volkswagen AG for the fifth consecutive month in November, putting the Japanese firm on track to remain the worlds top selling automaker in 2015 as sales at the German maker suffer following a diesel emissions scandal.

Toyota on Friday said group vehicle sales totaled 9.21 million in the January November period, more than the 9.10 million cars delivered by Volkswagen during the same period. Toyota has continuously outsold Volkswagen on a year to date basis since July.

Earlier this month, Volkswagen said its Volkswagen brand sales fell 2.2 percent year on year in November, extending a slide seen since October, the first full month after Europes biggest automaker admitted that it cheated diesel emissions tests in some of its cars.

Group sales at Toyota in the year through November eased 1.0 percent from the previous year, while Volkswagen group sales for the same period fell 1.7 percent.

The four week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends as it strips out week to week volatility, rose 1,750 to 272,500 last week.