GM Hangs On to Top Sales Spot Over Toyota
24 January 2008
The Wall Street Journal
By John D. Stoll
General Motors Corp. gets to keep its title as the world’s No. 1 auto maker for at least one more year.
The Detroit auto maker said yesterday that its global vehicle sales rose 3% in 2007 to 9,369,524 cars and trucks. With that total, GM barely squeezed by rival Toyota Motor Corp., which said it sold 9.366 million vehicles. The tight margin suggests the two will continue to battle it out for No. 1, with GM enjoying strong international growth even as it cuts back in the U.S.
GM has been the world’s largest auto maker by sales for the last 76 years. But amid a series of significant losses and a turnaround effort in North America that has yet to show much bottom-line success, Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner has had to focus on the struggle to return to profitability over the sales race with Toyota.
In an interview last week, Chief Financial Officer Fritz Henderson said GM is focused on profitable growth, adding that investors “would kill us if they thought we were trying to win” the race for No. 1.
Toyota has relied on a steady stream of new products and a weak Japanese currency to rack up tens of billions of dollars in profits in recent years. GM, meanwhile, has lost tens of billions since 2005 as a result of restructuring charges, disappointing results in North America, high labor costs and tax-related losses.
Mr. Wagoner has slashed billions of dollars in fixed costs and expects to realize an additional $5 billion in cost cuts and improved profitability by 2011, stemming from GM’s new labor contract. But to generate sustainable profits at a healthy level, GM may have to put more emphasis on sales growth, especially in its core North American operations.
GM was able to increase global vehicle sales last year because of strong growth in emerging markets, including Russia and China.
David Healy, an auto analyst at Burnham Securities, said GM is “probably keeping pace with Toyota currently everywhere around the world except in the U.S.,” while Toyota appears to be slowing its growth pace to stop some recent slip-ups in quality. “These two might be slugging it out for quite awhile,” he said.
In North America, which accounts for 48% of GM’s total sales, vehicles sales declined 6.1% to 4.5 million vehicles. China, now GM’s second-largest market after the U.S., accounted for sales of more than one million vehicles for the first time.
if GM would have nipped shit in the butt in the mid 90’s it might be a much different story and toyota may not have come roaring up like they have.
But they didn’t, and here we are today. On the plus side, this will hopefully benefit the consumer though in terms of better cars for less on both fronts…
:headbang:
exactly.
I think it’s because gm has a lot more cars in differnt markets…
Toyota does not have a large SUV like the Suburban (the landcruiser is more like a trailblazer than a suburban)
Toyota does not have a LIGHT heavy duty truck IE: Silverado 2500/3500
Which GM sells a TON of.
This does play a factor, but that isn’t where they are selling most of their vehicles globally.
Both GM and Toyota sell tons of smaller cars around the world where there isn’t an obsene need to drive a fucking 16mpg SUV to get to work.
$10,000 rebates help to move units.
I would agree Toyota did what it had to do to move trucks
Yeah. Toyota profited around $15 billion last year. I wonder how much product they would have pushed out the door if they operated at a loss too?
From the Automotive News:
DETROIT – General Motors had a solid year in 2007, with global sales up 1.9 percent from 2006. But it is now the world’s second-largest automaker.
GM slipped well behind Toyota Motor Corp. in global sales. GM sold 8,885,599 total vehicles in 2007, while Toyota says it sold an estimated 9,370,000. Toyota will issue an official total in about a month.
It was widely reported this week that the two automakers finished in a dead heat for the No. 1 spot. Here is why: GM includes in its total 516,435 vehicles of the Wuling brand in China.
But GM owns only 34 percent of the Chinese company that produces Wuling vehicles, SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co.
Let me help here…This is from my GM Business Update (I get one Monthly)
FOR THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR, GM SELLS MORE THAN 9 MILLION VEHICLES GLOBALLY . . . General Motors sold 9,369,524 cars and trucks around the world in 2007, an increase of 3 percent, according to preliminary sales figures released today. In the fourth quarter, GM sold 2,305,752 vehicles, an increase of 4.8 percent compared with a year ago.
“We set a record in China with more than a million vehicles sold. We nearly doubled our sales in Russia to an all-time record of more than 258,000 vehicles delivered. And we set a record in Brazil with nearly a half-million vehicles sold,” John Middlebrook, GM vice president, Global Sales, Service and Marketing Operations said today. “This is the kind of emerging market growth that fuels our global performance. Customers are responding to our fuel-efficient and dynamically-designed product lineup around the world.”
The 2007 tally was the second best global sales total in the company’s 100-year history and marked the third consecutive and fourth time (2007, 2006, 2005 and 1978) GM sold more than 9 million vehicles in a calendar year.
GM’s global position — especially the emerging markets — built sales momentum. Global sales of GM’s top-selling brand, Chevrolet, grew more than 4 percent to 4.49 million vehicles compared with 2006 sales of 4.30 million. Chevrolet grew in all three regions outside North America, with the strongest performance in Europe with a nearly 34 percent increase compared with 2006. The Latin America, Africa and Middle East region saw strong Chevrolet growth with an additional 23 percent (208,000 vehicles) delivered over the 2006 level. Chevrolet also performed well in the Asia Pacific region, which was up 22 percent. The Aveo helped Chevrolet field a strong competitor in the very competitive global car market.
GM also retains its strong truck portfolio, evidenced by 3.80 million truck sales around the world, an increase of more than 33,000 vehicles (1 percent) compared with 2006. Chevrolet sold more than 1.96 million trucks globally last year. GMC global sales grew nearly 6 percent in 2007, with 613,000 vehicles delivered, compared with 579,000 in 2006. Wuling sales in the Asia Pacific region also fueled significant truck, mini-truck, and mini-van performance with 516,000 vehicles sold, a 24 percent increase over 2006. GM increased full-size pickup truck market share in the U.S. in 2007 by 0.2 ppts to 40.2 percent.
By the way, I’m disappointed FRY, I thought you were on our side… well someone needs to be on the dark side. I guess I can still like you.
3000 unit lead?
Yea, they should be real proud.
Thats the first thing that I thought of.
They rebated millions of dollars this year, and managed to squeeze out a 3000 unit lead.
Wow.
I wonder how much they woulda profited if they had’nt offered early retirement packages. Im not one to stir the pot but has the quality of “american made” cars reached the bar with the japanese counterparts?
But hey at least they can be proud of something
GM cooked the books…
counting cars from a company that you only own 34% of is cheating IMO they need 50%. Without that they lose.
it’s like if Dell purchased 34% of gateway and said that dell increased sales dramatically.
if anyone cares Toyota recalled more cars in 2007 than it produced… I’m trying to find the proof, I had the email but I deleted it so I’m looking online
BigRon will back me up on this
“The fact is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that Toyota recalled more vehicles in the US than they sold last year. They recalled 2.38 million vehicles but only sold 2.26 million.”
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/182700/toyota_recalls_more_cars_than_they.html
good, maybe i can get a raise now…
ZOMG NOES!!!111 RECALLS!!!11!!1!
It’s pretty apparent that teh recall issues have not hurt their sales numbers.
Not that this has anything to do with the topic @ hand.
FTR, I have three domestics @ home.
GM AVERAGES 4.7 million a year since 2000.
yea, way to go. :rolljerk:
That huge Toyota recall count was for the year 2005… no?
“The manufacturers are more willing to do a recall before the agency starts an investigation, which is a good thing for consumers and a good thing for manufacturers because … you are going to catch them before they get big,” said Clarence Ditlow, president of the Center for Auto Safety, a watchdog group.
In 2007, Ford Motor Co. had the most recalled vehicles in the United States with more than 5.5 million. In August, the automaker recalled 3.6 million vehicles to address concerns about a cruise control deactivation switch that has led to nearly 10 million vehicles recalled since 1999.
DaimlerChrysler AG had the second-most in 2007 with 1.47 million, a decline of about 38 percent compared with nearly 2.4 million recalled vehicles in 2006.
General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Co. both saw a decline in total vehicles recalled. GM recalled 537,992 vehicles in 2007, by far its lowest number during the decade. The automaker has averaged 4.7 million recalled vehicles a year since 2000.
Toyota, which has vowed to crack down on quality problems, has seen its number of recalls drop for the second straight year to about 583,191 after it recalled a company record of 2.3 million in 2005
Gee, I wonder why this forum is so quick to jump into the domestic hate pool.