Toyota back on top as global auto sales champ

Paul A. Eisenstein , The Detroit Bureau

Toyota has officially reclaimed its global sales crown, the maker confirming it produced 9.75 million vehicles in 2012.

That was slightly ahead of a preliminary tally Toyota forecast as the year came to a close and locks it in first place ahead of General Motors, which sold 9.29 million vehicles. Volkswagen, at 9.1 million, came in third for 2012.

Toyota’s sales were slightly lower than the company had projected earlier in the year, the shortfall reflecting the ongoing dispute between Japan and China over a chain of small, uninhabited islands both nations claim.

In customary fashion, Toyota officials downplayed the sales results. “Rather than going after numbers, we hope to make fine products, one by one, to keep out customers satisfied. The numbers are just a result of our policy. And our policy will continue unchanged,” Toyota spokeswoman Shino Yamada told the Associated Press.

Nonetheless, it marked a significant comeback for the Japanese giant which first captured the global sales crown in 2008, displacing GM after seven decades as the sales leader. The U.S. maker plunged into bankruptcy the following year, recovering only with the assistance of a massive government loan.

With production back to normal, Toyota saw its sales in the home Japanese market surge 35% in 2012 while overseas sales jumped 23%. Adding additional models to the “family,” the Prius line firmed up its position as the world’s best-selling hybrid nameplate.Toyota briefly fell to third in the global chase in 2011, the maker suffering significant production cuts in the wake of Japan’s March earthquake and tsunami. It didn’t fully restore its worldwide production network to normal operations until the end of the year.

But not everything went as well as expected – notably in China where Toyota was just one of many Japanese businesses to suffer as the dispute over the Senkuko Islands – which the Chinese call the Daioyu – flared up. A Toyota dealership was torched and mobs destroyed many of the maker’s products. Sales fell by roughly half in the early weeks of the dispute though they have begun to recover more recently.

Toyota did have some other issues, notably a surge of safety-related problems including additional recalls related to the maker’s unintended acceleration issue. In all, Toyota recalled more vehicles than any other maker in the American market in 2012, and it ended the year by agreeing to an estimated $1.2 billion settlement related to the unintended acceleration issue. Even so, most analysts say the maker’s reputation escaped with relatively little damage.

Toyota is forecasting another increase in sales for 2013, hoping to reach a record 9.91 million. That is still short of an earlier projection of at least 10 million, however.

General Motors officials have not yet set out their own forecast and that could depend on the strength of the ongoing U.S. recovery. Earlier this month, Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson said the maker expected sales in the States to reach somewhere between 15.0 million and 15.5 million for 2013.

The wild card is Volkswagen, the aggressive German maker laying out plans to snatch the sales ground by the time it wraps up its current, 10-year growth plan in 2016. The weakness of the home European market could delay that strategy, though VW hopes to offset that by stressing China, Latin America and the recovering U.S. market where it was one of the fastest-growing brands in 2012

Copyright 2013 The Detroit Bureau

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Toyota widens global sales lead over GM

Darley Shen / Reuters

A worker cleans a Toyota Yaris car Oct. 12 at the Wuhan Motor Show, China's Hubei province. Although Toyota has outsold GM so far this year, the Japanese automaker's sales are falling in China over a territorial dispute.

By Tom Krisher and Yuri Kage, Associated Press
DETROIT — Toyota has widened its global sales lead over General Motors after bouncing back from a series of natural disasters.

The company said Friday it sold 7.4 million vehicles globally in the first nine months of this year — 450,000 more than General Motors. While Toyota's sales rose 28 percent in that period, GM's rose 2.5 percent, to 6.95 million cars and light-duty trucks.

Toyota's factories were hobbled by an earthquake and tsunami in early 2011, leaving it short of cars in the U.S. and other regions. But now the company has recovered, and is building and selling more vehicles globally. Germany's Volkswagen AG is also seeing strong global sales.

GM is more concerned with profitable growth than the global sales race, spokesman Jim Cain said. Toyota has made similar statements, but executives concede privately that the crown is a matter of corporate pride for both companies. GM was the top-selling automaker for more than seven decades before losing the title to Toyota in 2008.

But Toyota faces a challenge in keeping its lead this year. Sales are falling in China because of a territorial dispute with Japan. Japan nationalized islands in the East China Sea that are also claimed by China and Taiwan. The move set off violent protests in China and a widespread call to boycott Japanese goods.

Toyota, which makes the Prius hybrid, Camry sedan and Lexus luxury models, had planned to sell 1 million vehicles in China this year. But the company no longer expects to reach that number. It has not given a new target.

In September, Toyota's vehicle sales in China dropped to 44,100 vehicles, from 86,000 a year earlier. In August, Toyota sold 75,280 vehicles in China, down 15 percent from the same month last year.

Even if Toyota's China sales fall short of 1 million, Nomura Securities Co. auto analyst Masataka Kunugimoto expects them to gradually recover to 900,000 vehicles for the year.

"We don't expect this kind of drop to continue," he said. "The Chinese market is still growing."

Still, he sees GM and other non-Japanese manufacturers getting a sales boost as Chinese buyers avoid Japanese products.

Last year, Toyota's production was hit by the earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan and then by flooding in Thailand. Its sales were also dented by massive U.S. safety recalls. That combination of problems dropped Toyota to No. 3 in global sales after GM and Volkswagen.

VW is closing in on GM after notching big sales gains in the U.S. this year. The maker of the Passat and Jetta cars sold 6.7 million light vehicles from January through September, up 9.7 percent from a year earlier. But VW's challenge could fall short this year because Europe's weak economy has hurt sales in that region.

GM also has problems on its home turf. Sales growth in the U.S. — its biggest market — is lagging. Sales are up 3.4 percent through September, far behind the 15-percent growth for the industry as a whole.

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Toyota passes GM global and VW closes quickly

By Paul Lienert and Christiaan Hetzner, Reuters
General Motors co. in the first half of the year, with the Volkswagen AG poised move past GM and the U.S. automaker in third place for the full year won Toyota Motor Corp. the lead in worldwide car sales on.

The larger question is how quickly the German auto giant also Toyota passes and the global sales Crown to secure - an internal target, the VW management for 2018 as part of the company has set up the so-called strategy 18.

VW in a cautious statement released Thursday, said: "the Volkswagen Group is on the right track for 2018, but has not yet crossed the finish line." For us, quality takes precedence over quantity. We want not the largest, but rather to be the best and the most sustainable car manufacturers in the world. "Our eco-friendly products and satisfied customers and employees are at least as important as sales ranking and profitability."

It must be to maneuver Toyota intelligent has recovered from the effects of last year's earthquake and tsunami in Japan behind a resurgence. Toyota in February said he expected that a record to sell shattering the old mark of 9,3700 million in the year 2007 9,5800 million vehicles worldwide in 2012.

Toyota had instead of the global sales Crown from 2008 to 2010, before the natural disasters in Japan it was the third place behind GM and VW last year.

"We have recovered strongly from earthquakes and tsunami," said Javier Moreno, a spokesman for New York Toyota North America. "Our dealers have now much inventory and showroom traffic is on a global basis."

Toyota said that it a substantial increase of the 3,720 million sold worldwide 4,970 million vehicles in the first six months, which sold it last year, when all Japanese automakers from the earthquake aftermath were reeling.

GM said it sold 4,670 million vehicles in the first half, 3.0 percent from 4,540 million in the previous year. GM was global performance by record sales in the first half of the year in China, driven, that world is now more than 30 percent of the automaker. The US market is where GM sales grow much more slowly, only 28 per cent of the total turnover of the company.

GM spokesman James Cain said on Wednesday: "we continue to grow our sales and parts of China..." "We are in the early days of the most aggressive roll out new products in our history, which helps us our advantage in the United States and China press and grow profitably around the world."

VW, released in one to the middle of the year business report said Thursday that sales in the first half of 4,640 million, 12.4 percent of 4,130 million last year amounted to. But the German auto giant before recently sports car manufacturer Porsche a diversified portfolio of brands, which also heavy truck manufacturer MAN and Scania added to sound one note of restraint.

"Deliveries of the Volkswagen Group developed very well in the first half of the year," Chief Sales Christian Klingler told reporters this month. "But this is by no means cause for euphoria." "The economic situation, in particular in Western Europe, remains tense and difficult".

Klingler added: "We remain on the line and entering the second half (of the) year, which will be altogether more difficult with confidence."

A renewed focus on the American market is part of the VW long range plan for the global sales by more than 10 million units by 2018, with the United States a contribution of at least 10 percent of that volume boost.

Tom Libby, senior auto analyst at Southfield, Michigan-based r.l. Polk, said VW management "very aggressive, with the United States play an important role has been in its global growth strategy." "Become more competitive on prices here, and we expect that their sales and share will continue to rise."

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters.

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GM reclaims global sales crown

Gm / Wieck

Strong global demand for the Chevrolet Cruze helped propel GM to the top of the automotive heap.

By Paul A. Eisenstein, The Detroit Bureau

Less than three years after emerging from bankruptcy General Motors is positioned to once again be the world’s number one automaker, with sales for 2011 totaling 9.03 million. Its largest brand Chevrolet, meanwhile, reported an all-time record of 4.76 million sales to close out its 100th anniversary.

GM’s victory celebration will have to wait for Toyota to confirm its 2011 numbers.  The Japanese giant had toppled its U.S. rival as global king-of-the-hill three years ago but it lost 100s of thousands of units of production in 2011 due to the impact of the March 11 Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

For the first three quarters of last year, Toyota deliveries were off 8.8%, to 5.77 million, and though it had hoped to pick up lost momentum in the fourth quarter its plans were again set back by subsequent flooding in Thailand.  Preliminary figures suggest it will end 2011 with 7.9 million sales, down about 6% for the full year.

That is likely to mean that Volkswagen AG will squeak into second place, with total sales of 8.39 million for the year.  The German maker has set a goal of global sales leadership, however, by 2018.

Why VW wants to get there is a question analyst Aaron Bragman, of IHS Automotive, says he doesn’t fully understand.  It gets you bragging rights, the analyst says, “But that’s about it. Being biggest in the world is not necessarily an advantage to anyone.  GM was number one for something like 75 years and then went into bankruptcy.”

What is “far more important,” Bragman cautions, “is sustainable profitability.”

That’s not to say size doesn’t matter.  Bigger volume translates into greater economies of scale, which is why the top three makers – as well as rivals like Fiat/Chrysler and Nissan – push for volume.  In some cases, a manufacturer can sidestep the need to drive up its own sales by entering into alliances or joint ventures.  Nissan, for example, has a close partnership with France’s Renault, while it has also been expanding a series of joint ventures with Germany’s Daimler – the two announcing this month plans to jointly produce engines at a plant in Decherd, Tennessee.

Nonetheless, the latest industry sales numbers can’t simply be dismissed.  For GM, they symbolize a significant recovery since the maker lost the sales crown shortly before having to enter Chapter 11 protection.

In particular, the tally underscores the U.S. maker’s increasing focus on markets outside of its traditional hub in North America.  Nearly three out of four GM vehicles were sold, last year, in markets ranging from China to the Czech Republic.

And a growing number of them wore the Chevrolet badge.  Chevy has traditionally been the largest of the GM brands but, until recently, it focused on the Americas, leaving the rest of the world to German-based Opel (and, in China, to Buick).  In recent years, GM has been downplaying the troubled Opel and turning to Chevrolet to do the global heavy lifting.  Much of its growth has been organic, but in 2011 GM abandoned the Daewoo nameplate and rebadged the Korean brand’s products as Chevys.

While foreign sales typically don’t generate the revenues and margins of products sold in the U.S., GM saw its earnings during just the first nine months of 2011 surge to $8.47 billion, up from $6.17 billion in 2010.  The maker had lost tens of billions in the years leading up to its bankruptcy.

As for Toyota, the Japanese automaker has laid out its own aggressive goals, but the push to reach 10 million sales annually will likely be delayed by several years, at the least, analysts caution.

In fact, Bragman believes Toyota could find it much more difficult to regain the industry lead than it has indicated.

“I don’t buy into the idea they’ll come roaring back,” he said. “They’re going to have a fight on their hands” as GM pushes to maintain its momentum while VW marches forward in its own bid for world domination.

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United States, GM going global less dependent on

Dealing with automotive name tags, more Americans as General is not one clear Motors largest marque, a brand that long urged to think buyer "Hot dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet."

But not quite as American feel these days Chevy.

The famous Chevy bowtie seems everywhere, pop from Berlin to Beijing. A full 45 percent the brand sales came from outside the United States in the last year, and Chevy wants to increase its share of international markets in the year 2011. Chevy is a dominant force in Latin America and one of the fastest growing name in Europe and China.

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But seems as Chevy to GM grow global brand, it is not the burden entirely on its own. While humiliated GM have eliminated half of its North American brands which could to arise from the family in 2009, it was actually expanded the number of trademarks it worldwide operates, most recently the Baojun create brand - or "Treasured horse" - for the Chinese market.

The establishment of the brand reflects significant shift of the GM strategy. Half a century before, former Chairman of the GM "Engine" Charlie Wilson said Congress, that for years thought I which for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa. "" The comment is often misquoted as "what is good for General Motors is good for America." However formulated, which was a picture of GM indelibly with American manufacturing is connected.

No more. About two-thirds of the company's sales in 2010 from overseas markets, notes analyst Ed Kim, automotive research and AutoPacific marketing company came.

"GM will have them always less dependent on the US market, and the need," said Kim.

While GM be tarnished image in the United States over the years has as its fortunes have declined, it is a different story in much of the rest of the world (maybe with exception of Europe, where massive losses led almost the automaker a majority stake in the Opel subsidiary sell), End of 2009).

The Opel brand is still headache for GM and Chevy is elsewhere some Opel take up losses in Europe and the sales grow, especially in China. In fact, all the various GM brands have a hard time to keep up with the demand in the booming Asian nation.

While not the first Western auto manufacturers put a factory behind the curtain bamboo, GM was one of the early players and what was a controversial decision at the beginning of the new millennium is now considered a brilliant bet. In the last year GM was the first car manufacturer, to sell more than 2 million cars in China sell 2.3 million vehicles, and if the economy remains solid some analysts believe that it soon the 3 million mark will be hit.

GM's largest brand in China - in the fact that most car is brand in the Chinese market - seemed Buick, a name that until recently for the automotive scrap heap back are in North America. But it survived the post bankruptcy brand extinction, said Ed Welburn, GM Design Director "because it would have stained Buick's image [in China] if we eliminated the brand back home."

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So far the growth in the Chinese market has come most from the economically fertile Crescent of Pacific coast, but this trend is likely because the smog and traffic clogged cities like Beijing now slow target, automotive growth to shift. The Baojun brand was specifically go after consumers in the second and third tier cities in the Chinese inner created.

With 20 new products, which is under its different brand names, GM bets it its current 13 percent stake in the Chinese market clearly can - increase where it already sold more vehicles when it sold in the United States.

Also the pedal pushes the car manufacturers, the metal into other major emerging economies, in particular Brazil, Russia and India, which along with China, are known as the "Bric" markets.

Restore with the US market at a relatively moderate pace - and consumer demand strong incentives for them in showrooms curl - GM officials admit that they have led reflection to use their limited resources. Against the GM Chapter 11 filing, former GM Vice President and "Car czar" Bob Lutz acknowledged that probably more emphasis would put the automaker on overseas operations.

This is particularly evident with the Buick brand, where increasingly key product development decisions on GM Chinese Central, be made in Beijing. Much of the small car development work for Chevrolet, and other brands GM has moved what used to short or the old Daewoo brand in South Korea are called.

The shift reflects the GM move for global platforms. It is a strategy which adopted most car manufacturers - American, Asian and European. Rather than a product specifically for each market develop, GM global platforms, works the in, say, be released can China, Germany, and the United States.

This does not necessarily means that cars are the same. Can notable updates to regional demand reflect it. But the approach helps to build economies of scale.

On the question whether attention is away from the US market with a focus on a global strategy, GM is Vice President Steve Girsky States that "each market an own different tastes and desires will have." "The challenge for us is to meet those needs during communizing as possible customize as many parts and components."

The global approach will help expand its presence in new markets, GM also you "where we want to remain strong," said GM CEO Dan Akerson recently. The focus on global products a disadvantage but can, in particular, if you delay by other programs.

"As a result of bankruptcy proceedings, we are about 12-15 months behind where we would in new product launches in this country, his" Akerson recently recognized.

The Chief Executive approved developed Flash, a spending to fill, what a real product could be hole in the United States in the next few years, but it might be difficult to catch up, GM admit officials. If so, the carmaker is wind to be dependent on the much more foreign markets such as China, which pick up the slack.

© 2011 msnbc.com.  Reprints

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