Toyota Motor Corp’s four-year run as the world’s top-selling automaker has ended as the Japanese company said yesterday its global sales for 2016 fell short of Volkswagen AGs.

Toyota said global sales across its Toyota, Lexus, Daihatsu minicar and Hino Motors Ltd truck brands rose 0.2 per cent to 10.18 million last year from 2015. This was less than the 10.3 million sold by Volkswagen, which posted record high global sales despite its diesel emissions scandal.

Toyota’s overall global sales were supported by a 5.5 per cent rise in domestic sales for the Toyota brand following new launches for models including the Prius, while overseas sales slipped 0.6 per cent as demand eased in North America, in and around the Middle East and Africa.

Toyota, which had been the world’s top-selling automaker on an annual basis since 2012, estimates global sales to increase to around 10.23 million vehicles in 2017.

IEA does not foresee oil demand peaking soon, Birol says

The International Energy Agency (IEA) did not expect oil demand to peak any time soon due to rising consumption in developing economies, director Fatih Birol said yesterday.

Birol also warned that oil markets could enter a period of high volatility unless companies develop new projects after two years of sharp drops in investments sparked by low oil prices.

“We do not see in the near and medium terms oil products can be substituted by other fuels. More than one-third of growth comes from trucks in developing Asia... We do not subscribe to oil demand peaking anytime soon,” Birol said at the GE Oil and Gas annual meeting in Florence, Italy.

“If there are no major new major projects this year, it will be very difficult to see how we would not have turbulent times in the market in the years to come because of the growing supply gap.”

Unicredit block notes and pens at the headquarters in Milan. Photo: Stefano Rellandini/Reuters

UniCredit says to fail ECB capital requirements ahead of cash call

Italy’s biggest bank UniCredit said yesterday its end-2016 capital ratios would not meet requirements set by the European Central Bank as it prepared to launch a €13-billion rights issue to boost its financial strength. In a preliminary document for the fundraising the bank said the decline in its capital ratios was due to €12.2 billion of one-off charges it plans to book in the Q4 to increase its coverage of problematic loans.