from Reuters

Toyota Motor Corp said on Thursday its group-wide sales fell 27 percent to 1.767 million vehicles in the first quarter of 2009, keeping it ahead of Volkswagen AG as the world’s top-selling carmaker.

Toyota was expected to be in a tight race with the German automaker in the January-March quarter, when the Japanese giant suffered double-digit percentage drops in its three biggest markets of the United States, Japan and China. (more…)