Volkswagen has achieved its goal of becoming the world's largest automaker, beating Toyota in sales in the first half of 2015.
The German automaker took the title on Tuesday after selling 5.04 million vehicles in the first six months of the year, while Toyota sold 5.02 million, according to USA Today.
Despite taking second place, Toyota is staying strong with a valuable global market share, as its operating profit margin for its 2015 fiscal year is 10.1 percent, while Volkswagen's global operating market margin was 6.3 percent.
Volkswagen was able to take the top spot in car sales thanks to a high demand for cars in Europe, which has grown at the fastest pace in five-and-a-half years, Bloomberg reported. The goal for the company was set in 2007 and achieved three years ahead of its target.
Both Volkswagen and Toyota experienced a drop in deliveries, with the former seeing a 0.5 percent decline and the later seeing a 1.5 percent decline. General Motors took third place in global sales with 4.86 vehicles while experiencing a decline in deliveries by 1.2 percent.
Volkswagen spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan said in an email that the company doesn't comment on competitors' figures, USA Today reported.
"The goal of the Volkswagen Group is to focus on qualitative growth and not being No 1 in sales," she added.
Now it is up to Volkswagen to keep the title of world's largest automaker for the rest of the year.
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