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TOYOTA has become the world’s leading seller of cars, overtaking General Motors for the first time.
The Japanese group, which began life making weaving looms, said it sold 2.35 million vehicles in the first quarter of this year, a nine per cent jump, compared with the 2.26 million sold by GM.
The US company saw its own sales rise three per cent as it continued its recovery from horrendous losses in the past two years.
The leap in Toyota’s sales, on course to reach a global target of 9.34 million this year, is primarily due to booming export deliveries – the Camry is the biggest-selling car in the United States – while sales in its stagnant domestic market fell again. In the year to March 31, the combined group’s sales, including Daihatsu and Hino, fell for the first time in five years.
The figures are bound to raise pressure on the US Administration to push the Japanese authorities to take action to strengthen the yen against the dollar. The shrinking Japanese market was highlighted when Nissan said it would cut 1,500 jobs in Japan, the first time it has reduced local staff in eight years, because of falling sales.
Toyota has been eating into GM’s lead in the US market as American consumers, worried about rising fuel costs, switch to more eco-friendly, smaller vehicles. Its American rival is fighting back with new fuel-efficient models, including hybrid vehicles – up to now a Toyota speciality. “Everybody on the road expects Toyota to overtake GM in 2007,” Koji Endo, an analyst with Credit Suisse in Tokyo, said. “I won’t say the trend is impossible to reverse but it’s extremely difficult.”
