Toyota ended 2015 with 10.15 million sales, retaining its status as the world's biggest automaker for the fourth year in a row. The final tally was down slightly on the 10.23 million sales Toyota made in 2014, though it was enough to edge out top contenders Volkswagen and General Motors Company [NYSE:GM] which posted 9.93 million and 9.8 million sales, respectively. Renault Nissan was at fourth with 8.22 million sales while rounding out the top five was Hyundai Kia with 8.01 million sales.

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Early on, it looked like VW was on track to be the biggest automaker in 2015 as its sales for the first half of the year exceeded those of Toyota. However, the German automaker’s numbers were hurt in the second half by the ongoing diesel emissions cheating scandal as well as a slowdown in China and Russia. The slowdown in Russia was also attributed as one of the main reasons Toyota’s sales dipped in 2015.

Toyota’s sales include figures from the Toyota, Scion, Lexus, Hino and Daihatsu brands. With the latter, Toyota owns a 51 percent stake but said on Wednesday that it was considering buying out the rest of the brand. The outstanding portion of Daihatsu is currently valued at about $3.2 billion.

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Looking ahead, Toyota says it expects sales in 2016 to largely remain flat.

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