Fast forward for VW in car sales league

GM has said that it will introduce 60 new or upgraded models in China by 2015. The total investment, along with its Chinese joint venture partners, will reach $11 billion by 2016, covering products, factories and staff.

In the US market, GM held onto top position in 2013, far ahead of Ford Motor Co and Toyota Motor Corp, with annual growth of 7.3 percent, while VW's sales dipped 7 percent to 408,000 units.

Winterkorn said that Volkswagen will invest $7 billion over the next five years to revive sales in the US.

Looking more closely at the China market, third place went to South Korea-based Hyundai Motor Group. It delivered 1.62 million Hyundai and Kia vehicles to Chinese consumers last year, which was a record high. That represented a year-on-year growth of 16 percent.

Japan-based Nissan Motor Co took fourth position. It said sales in China reached 1.27 million units, a 17.2 percent year-on-year improvement from 2012.

Fifth place went to Ford Motor Co. The US-based automaker sold 935,813 vehicles, up 49.3 percent.

Toyota - the largest automaker in the world - fell out of the top five in the mainland for the first time, even though it reported record sales in China of 917,500 vehicles, up 9.2 percent.

Last year was one of recovery for Japanese vehicle makers, who saw their sales plunge in 2012 due to Chinese drivers' anti-Japanese sentiment during the Diaoyu Islands territorial dispute. But analysts said that Japanese car companies' future in China is unclear, given the worsening Sino-Japanese diplomatic relationship.

Toyota Chief Executive Officer Akio Toyoda said earlier that the company can't avoid the effects of the bilateral relationship, "but we will try to offset the impact".

Toyota aims to sell 1.1 million vehicles in China in 2014. But that would still leave it far behind VW and GM in the world's most promising vehicle market.