FACTBOX: Volkswagen and Porsche: How do they match up?

(Reuters) - Porsche SE has scrapped attempts to take over Volkswagen (VW) and instead agreed to explore a merger with Europe's biggest carmaker.

Here are key measures for the two carmakers.

- VW posted annual sales of 113.8 billion euros, more than 16 times Porsche's approximately 7 billion euros.*

- VW sold 6.27 million cars last year, more than 70 times the 87,000 cars delivered by Porsche.*

- VW has 370,000 staff globally vs 12,800 for Porsche

- VW's market value stands at around 71 billion euros. Porsche's listed preferred shares are worth around 3.6 billion euros, but this excludes the value of the unlisted voting shares held entirely by the Porsche and Piech families.

- Porsche's stable of models is made up of the 911 sports coupe, the Boxster cabrio and its hard-top derivative Cayman, the SUV Cayenne and the luxury sedan Panamera, with market launch slated for January 2010. It operates plants in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen and Leipzig in Germany and uses an assembly plant in Finland it does not own.

- VW's brands comprise the namesake VW hallmark on passenger cars, vans and light trucks, Audi, Skoda, Seat, Bentley luxury cars, sports cars Lamborghini and Bugatti as well as Scania trucks. It has 61 plants in 21 countries including Germany, Spain, the Czech Republic, Brazil, China, Italy

(* Porsche's sales figures are based on the 12 months through January 2009, taken from its financial reports. VW sales figures are from the company's 2008 annual report.)

($1=.7337 Euro)

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger; Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford and David Cowell)