The company's operations in China have grown rapidly in the past decade with the country becoming its largest market. Volkswagen acquired a controlling stake in SEAT in 1986, making it the first non-German marque of the company, and first acquired control of Škoda in 1994, then of Bentley, Lamborghini, and Bugatti in 1998, then of Ducati, MAN, and Porsche in 2012, and finally of Traton in 2013. Volkswagen launched a new generation of front-wheel drive vehicles in the 1970s, including the Passat, Polo, and Golf the last became its bestseller. The company's production grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s, and in 1965, it acquired Auto Union, which subsequently produced the first postwar Audi models. Volkswagen was founded in 1937, to manufacture the car that would become known as the Beetle. The company has operations in roughly 150 countries and operates 100 production facilities across 27 countries.

Volkswagen also has two major joint ventures in China ( FAW-Volkswagen and SAIC Volkswagen). It is divided into two primary divisions-the Automotive Division and the Financial Services Division-and as of 2008, had about 342 subsidiary companies. The Volkswagen Group sells passenger cars under the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, SEAT, Škoda, RUF and Volkswagen marques light commercial vehicles under the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles brand motorcycles under the Ducati brand and heavy commercial vehicles via the marques of listed subsidiary Traton: MAN, Scania, Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus, and Navistar. It ranked seventh in the 2018 Fortune Global 500 list of the world's largest companies. It has maintained the largest market share in Europe for over two decades. In 2016, it was the world's largest automaker by sales, overtaking Toyota and keeping this title in 2017, 20, selling 10.9 million vehicles. It designs, manufactures, and distributes passenger and commercial vehicles, motorcycles, engines, and turbomachinery, and offers related services, including financing, leasing, and fleet management. The Volkswagen AG ( German: ( listen)), known internationally as the Volkswagen Group, is a German multinational automotive manufacturing corporation headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany, and since the late 2000s is a publicly-traded family business majority owned by Porsche SE, which in turn is half-owned but fully owned by the Austrian-German Porsche and Piëch family.

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