Volkswagen Group is a German multinational automotive manufacturing group headquartered in Wolfsburg. It is the world’s second-largest motor vehicle manufacturer by 2011 unit sales and the largest based in Europe.The Group's parent company Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft,usually abbreviated to Volkswagen AG, develops vehicles and components for all marques of the whole group, and also manufactures complete vehicles for the Volkswagen Passenger Cars and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles marques.As of September 2011, 50.73% of the voting rights in Volkswagen AG were held by Porsche Automobil Holding SE, which is also the parent company of Porsche AG.Volkswagen Group is divided into two primary divisions: the Automotive Division, and the Financial Services Division.The Group consists of 342 Group companies, which are involved in either vehicle production or other related automotive services.Volkswagen was founded on 28 May 1937 as the Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagens mbH ("Society for the preparation of the German People's Car", abbreviated to Gezuvor ) by the Nazi Deutsche Arbeitsfron (German Labour Front). The purpose of the company was to manufacture the Volkswagen car, originally referred to as the Porsche Type 60, and later better known as the Volkswagen Beetle. On 16 September 1938, the company was renamed Volkswagenwerk GmbH ("Volkswagen Factory limited liability company").During World War II the Volkswagen plant near Fallersleben primarily manufactured the military Kübelwagen (Porsche Type 82) and the related amphibious Schwimmwagen (Type 166), both of which were derived from the Volkswagen. Only a small number of Type 60 Volkswagens were made during this time period. The plant also manufactured the V-1 flying bomb, also known as the "Buzz Bomb" or "Doodlebug", making the plant a major bombing target for the Allied forces. Much of the workforce at the plant was slave labor, primarily from eastern Europe.After the war in Europe, in June 1945, Major Ivan Hirst of the British Army Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) took control of the bomb-shattered factory, and restarted production, pending the expected disposal of the plant as war reparations. However, no British car manufacturer was interested; "the vehicle does not meet the fundamental technical requirement of a motor-car ... it is quite unattractive to the average buyer ... To build the car commercially would be a completely uneconomic enterprise". In 1948, the Ford Motor Company was offered Volkswagen, but Ernest Breech, a Ford executive vice president said he didn't think either the plant or the car was "worth a damn."As part of the Industrial plans for Germany, large parts of German industry, including Volkswagen, were to be dismantled. Total German car production was set at a maximum of 10% of the 1936 car production numbers.The company survived by producing cars for the British Army, and in 1948, the British Government handed the company back over to the German state, where it was managed by former-Opel chief Heinrich Nordhoff.Production of the Type 60 Volkswagen (re-designated Type 1) started slowly after the war due to the need to rebuild the plant and because of the lack of raw materials, but production grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s. The company began introducing new models based on the Type 1, all with the same basic air-cooled, rear-engine, rear-drive platform. These included the Volkswagen Type 2 in 1950, the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia in 1955, the Volkswagen Type 3 in 1961, the Volkswagen Type 4 in 1968, and the Volkswagen Type 181in 1969.In 1960, upon the flotation of part of the German federal government's stake in the company on the German stock market, its name became Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft (usually abbreviated to Volkswagenwerk AG).On 1 January 1965, Volkswagenwerk acquired Auto Union GmbH from its parent company Daimler-Benz. The new subsidiary went on to produce the first post-war Audi models, the Audi F103 series, shortly afterwards.Another German manufacturer, NSU Motorenwerke AG, was merged into Auto Union on 26 August 1969, creating a new company, Audi NSU Auto Union AG (later renamed AUDI AG in 1985).
Net income € 15.4 billion (2011)
Total assets € 199 billion (2010)