Toyota Becomes No. 2 Automaker Behind GM

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Toyota Becomes No. 2 Automaker Behind GM



By Associated Press

January 23, 2004, 11:51 AM CST

TOKYO -- Toyota Motor Corp. outsold Ford Motor Co. last year to become the world's No. 2 automaker behind General Motors Corp., preliminary sales data released by the Japanese company showed Friday.

A Toyota spokesman said estimated unit sales for 2003 reached 6.78 million vehicles, up 9.9 percent from 6.17 million the previous year.

On Thursday, Ford reported its 2003 sales slipped to 6.72 million vehicles, down 3.6 percent from 6.97 million.

Toyota spokesman Shinya Matsumoto characterized his company's sales as an "indicator" of rising customer satisfaction but played down the comparison with Ford.

Sales figures do not include vehicles sold by affiliates in which an automaker holds a stake of less than 50 percent, Matsumoto said.

Adding sales by Mazda Motor Corp. -- which is 33 percent owned by Ford -- to the total of the Dearborn, Mich.-based automaker would make it larger than Toyota, he said. Mazda sold 1.02 million vehicles in its most recent fiscal year.

Toyota's sales results include those for truck and bus maker Hino Motors and Daihatsu Motor Co. Toyota owns 51.1 percent of Daihatsu and 50.1 percent of Hino.

GM, the world's largest automaker, sold 8.60 million vehicles last year.

Though Japan's economy remains stuck in a decade-old slump, Toyota is coming off record earnings on strong export sales.

Toyota's American arm said its 2003 sales rose 6.3 percent to more than 1.8 million vehicles -- the company's best performance in its 46-year history. For the second year in a row and the sixth time in the past seven years, Toyota's Camry was America's best-selling car.

Group profits at Toyota were 944.6 billion yen (US$8.83 billion) for the fiscal year ended in March 2003.
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
 
RE: Toyota Becomes No. 2 Automaker Behind GM

Compare how many different Model's GM offers, and how many Toyota does in the U.S.... that will only make GM look worse.
 
RE: Toyota Becomes No. 2 Automaker Behind GM

We'll see if it holds up. GM and Ford have a lot of new vehicles coming out in the next couple of years.
 
RE: Toyota Becomes No. 2 Automaker Behind GM

We'll see if it holds up. GM and Ford have a lot of new vehicles coming out in the next couple of years.
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And what? Toyota's design team will just stagnate? Toyota will also be coming out with new models.

I'm not sure which GM or Ford products will impress. (exluding Mustang..maybe the Ford 500 will be OK). Corvette will be nice..but niot a huge market car. We will see. I'm always hopefull of new cars. We'll have to see how they rate.
 
RE: Toyota Becomes No. 2 Automaker Behind GM

I'm going to buy a Scion xB in a few months to replace my '97 Mark VIII. I need a new car with good mileage, and I don't want some cookie cutter Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla. Sorry to go Japanese guys!!
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How can you go from such a nice, fast car, to such an ugly, slow econobox? I bet you don't get any better mileage or reliability than your mark. If i were you, i'd hang on to the mark for a few months, so that when you're totally sorry you downgraded, you can sell the toyota and go back to a real car.
 
Toyota says Ford is still No. 2

Toyota says Ford is still No. 2

This reminds me of the scandal surrounding Cadillac a few years ago when Lincoln outsold Cadillac but Cadillac trumped up false information to claim the opposite.


Toyota says Ford is still No. 2

By Alan Ohnsman / Bloomberg News

Toyota Motor Co.p., Asia’s largest automaker, didn’t pass Ford Motor Co. in total car and truck sales in 2003 if its sales are calculated on the same basis, Toyota President Fujio Cho said.

Toyota said in January that it sold 6.78 million vehicles worldwide last year, including those of subsidiaries Hino Motors Ltd. and Daihatsu Motor Co., exceeding Ford’s 6.72 million. Last week, the Japanese company announced a modified total of 6.49 million, excluding sales of joint ventures in China and Indonesia.

“If you use exactly the same basis for comparison, Ford is the No. 2 carmaker,” Cho told reporters at a briefing in San Francisco. “The numbers Ford announced were the unit sales based upon financial results at the closure of the books for the fiscal year. Using the same base for calculation, according to that, it is clear Ford is the No. 2.”

Toyota, which plans to raise its global market share to 15 percent within a decade from more than 10 percent now, has said it has no specific goal of beating Ford or General Motors Corp., the world’s largest automaker, by sales. Still, 15 percent market share would push the Toyota City, Japan-based company’s sales beyond that of General Motors, which now makes more than 14 percent of vehicles purchased worldwide.

Ford’s sales number is calculated on a wholesale basis, representing sales to dealers and distributors. Toyota has said its initial number was retail, or registered vehicle sales, while its second number was wholesale.

Cho and General Motors Chief Executive Richard Wagoner were in San Francisco to mark the 20th anniversary of the automakers’ jointly owned New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant. The factory in Fremont, California, operated from 1963 to 1982 as a General Motors facility and reopened in 1984 as an equal partnership between the two carmakers.

Toyota’s U.S. sales operations are based in Torrance, Calif. The company’s U.S. shares, which have gained 36 percent in the past year, fell $1.45 to $66.55 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.


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