Toyota Fends Off VW to Remain Biggest Carmaker
Toyota warded off Volkswagen to remain the world’s top-selling automaker for a third consecutive year, driven by record US deliveries of its sport-utility vehicles.
Worldwide sales for Toyota, including its Hino and Daihatsu units, climbed 3 percent to 10.23 million vehicles last year, according to a company statement.
Volkswagen last week reported a 4.2 percent gain to 10.14 million vehicles, including its two heavy-truck units.
General Motors followed with 9.92 million sales, up 2.1 percent.
Surging demand for SUVs including the compact RAV4 and mid-size Highlander paced Toyota’s US market share gain last year, spurring plans to boost local production and exports from Japan in 2015.
As Volkswagen and GM add factories to bolster their already-dominant position in China, president Akio Toyoda’s strategy to forgo building new car plants until at least next year could result in the first shakeup in auto-sales leadership since 2011.
“Their focus is not number one,” said Peggy Furusaka, a Tokyo-based auto-credit analyst at Moody’s Investors Service.
“Toyota is more concerned about keeping profitability than chasing numbers. So for coming years, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Toyota selling fewer cars than VW.”
Toyota forecasts a 1 percent decline in annual sales to 10.15 million vehicles in 2015, the Toyota City, Japan-based carmaker said in a statement on Wednesday. Volkswagen and GM haven’t announced projections for this year.
Toyota is predicting a decline in sales this year because of an expected slump in demand in Japan, where the consumption tax increase last year had brought forward many purchases, spokeswoman Kayo Doi said.
Last year, Toyota’s sales gained in the United States, Europe, China and Brazil while deliveries in Thailand and Indonesia slumped, according to the company.
The automaker’s shares fell 1.3 percent to 7,556 yen as of 2:17 p.m. on Wednesday in Tokyo trading. The benchmark Topix index slid 0.9 percent.
Toyoda, 58 and the founder’s grandson, has reined in the building of new plants following sudden unintended acceleration recalls in 2009 and 2010 and Japan’s tsunami the next year.
The factory freeze was a response to those crises early in Toyoda’s tenure. Overexpansion before he became president had contributed to the carmaker’s first annual loss in almost six decades.
SUV deliveries Sales in the United States for Toyota climbed 6.2 percent to 2.37 million units last year, outpacing growth for GM, the largest US carmaker, researcher Autodata said.
Record SUV deliveries helped Toyota quadruple Volkswagen’s sales, which dropped 2.9 percent, Autodata said.
The VW brand sells just two SUVs in the United States — the compact Tiguan and upscale Touareg — while Toyota fields five. The Japanese automaker is now considering smaller SUVs for further growth, Jim Lentz, chief executive of Toyota’s North American operations, said in an interview this month.
In China, Toyota sells less than one-third as many vehicles as Volkswagen or GM, which have pledged to continue building local factories to supply a market forecast to expand to another record of more than 25 million vehicles this year.
GM’s China sales rose 12 percent last year to 3.54 million vehicles, while mainland China and Hong Kong accounted for a record 3.67 million deliveries at Volkswagen last year, up 12 percent and extending the country’s lead as the German automaker’s largest single market.
By contrast, Toyota delivered fewer vehicles in China last year than it targeted as slowing growth and vehicle stockpiles led some of its dealers to threaten to drop out of its sales network.
Sales climbed 12.5 percent to 1.03 million units, missing its projection for 1.1 million. The company maintained the same target for this year. VW plans to raise annual production capacity in China to 4 million units by 2018.
Bloomberg
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