Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp overtook Germany’s Volkswagen in vehicle sales last year, regaining pole position as the world’s top selling automaker for the first time in five years as the pandemic demand slump hit its German rival harder.

Toyota said on Thursday its group-wide global sales fell 11.3 per cent to 9.528 million vehicles in 2020. That compared with a 15.2 percent drop at Volkswagen to 9.305 million vehicles.

Automakers have suffered as coronavirus lockdowns have stopped people from visiting car showrooms and forced manufacturing plants to reduce or halt production.

Toyota, however, has weathered the pandemic better in part because its home market Japan, and the Asian region in general, have been less affected by the outbreak than Europe and the United States.

“Our focus is not on what our ranking may be, but on serving our customers” a Toyota spokeswoman said.

As demand for cars rebounds, particularly in China, Toyota, Volkswagen and other manufacturers are scrambling to tap growing demand for electric cars. Toyota said that the ratio of electric vehicle it sold last year grew to 23 per cent of total sales from 20 per cent in 2019.

Both carmakers have benefited from a strong recovery in sales in China, despite a tumultuous year of plant closures and supply chain disruptions due to Covid-19. But Volkswagen has been hit harder by a fall in sales in Europe.

For Toyota, demand for its Lexus luxury brand helped boost sales in China by 11 per cent in 2020 — the only market to report year-on-year growth.

While the Japanese group’s global sales were down 11.3 per cent from 2019, the fallout from the pandemic was also offset by strong demand for its RAV4 sport utility vehicle in the US, its biggest market. Subsidies also helped to boost gas-electric hybrids in Europe.

Toyota said 23 per cent of its global sales were now electrified vehicles, most of which were hybrids. Its hybrid technology, which it has been selling in its Prius model for 20 years, is the reason Toyota has one of the lowest average CO2 emissions per car of any maker in Europe, despite not offering any fully electric vehicles.