On the subject of the contest between GM and Toyota for the title "World's Largest Automaker," Autoblog jeffe John Neff accepts an unnamed source (via Reuters) and pronounces GM the winner. Strangely (for a man who's devoted a sizable chunk of cyber-space to the battle), Neff writes that "owning this title makes little difference to either automaker." Readers familiar with Toyota's profits– which dwarf GM's– would be forgiven for thinking that's where Neff's going. Readers familiar with Toyota's growing U.S. market share– as opposed to GM's shrinking market share– would also be forgiven for thinking that's where the story is about to go. Uh-uh. "Even if Toyota does pass GM in global sales for 2008, however, we don't expect it will be able to keep the title for very long before the General snaps it back. GM has a stronger presence in China and is doing very well in emerging markets, while Europeans seem to have taken a liking to the Chevy brand over there. If GM can get its U.S. sales back up, we expect it will remain the world's largest automaker." And as my Dad likes to say, if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a trolley car.
[FYI John Neff discusses blogs vs. the trad media with his pals here.]
Believing that Gm is the biggest car manufacturer is the same way believing that US economy is steadily growing.
The numbers don’t lie. GM beat Toyota (just barely) by roughly 3000 units. Whether or not GM can hold that position is certainly doubtful but, you gotta give credit where credit due. GM did improve sales over the previous year. I say good for GM but, can they hang on…..
“Europeans seem to have taken a liking to the Chevy Brand”. In Catherine Tate’s Words: (use a cockney accent)“What a f**king liberty!”
GM’s presence in Europe is and should be limited to Opel and Vauxhall. They even have some decent cars. I went in the new Corsa yesterday, not a bad little chariot. I’d consider one.
That GM are even trying to get Chevy acceptance in Europe only serves to underline their complete failure to understand brands.
I like the part about “GM has a stronger presence in China…”. There won’t be any need to “get the lead out” then will there?
Commendable job by the General to retain its’ 77 year run as “world’s largest automaker”. One could argue that Autoblog’s positive outlook for GM is the polar opposite of TTAC’s stance. I guess everyone is allowed an opinion.
Chevy mostly sells rebadged Daewoos in Europe. It’s apparently targeted for markets east of Germany. The only North American model is the HHR.
If indeed GM retained the title, it did so by giving more cars away, perhaps in homage to the old joke: “We lose money on everything we sell, but we make it up in volume.” In any business sense, Toyota’s trends show that they are now the world’s premier automaker; they make more money, produce a higher quality product, and are everyone’s target for reliability.
Arguing that GM is the world’s largest carmaker is like arguing that the Titanic was the world’s safest ocean liner as it was sinking! What a ridiculous comparison.
And, with apologies to those who want to keep their rosy glasses on with GM, a Malibu, a CTS and a Corvette do not a renaissance make. The rest of the product line consists of the same old yawners. And while it is encouraging that a few GM products are competitive, only the Corvette is a class leader within a very small class. No one in the world uses GM quality or engineering as a benchmark, and that’s the very leadership to which they should aspire if they want to be the world’s largest carmaker.
add in Lexus and Scion – then lets see who won.
Toyota only counts Toyota
GM counts GMC, Pontiac, Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, Saturn, Saab, Holden, Vauxhall, and Opel.
cretinx, the global sales figure is not for Toyota division, but Toyota as a corporation. GM still eked out 3000-3500 more sales in 2007.
I’ve heard questions about whether GM is properly accounting for vehicle sales in its Chinese joint ventures, but the Toyota number is all-inclusive.
Oh, and you forgot Hummer and the aforementioned JVs.
add in Lexus and Scion – then lets see who won.
Toyota only counts Toyota
Wrong. Toyota counts ALL vehicles produced worldwide by Toyoda Motor Corp
GM gets to hold the crown for at least one more year…then we’ll see. We’ll see in 5 years where they are in market share and sustainability.
The facts that tell us GM is the world leader for 2007 also paint a not-so-rosy financial picture which will affect their numbers in the years to come. The 77 year grasp is slipping away faster every year.
I say better for GM if they lose the title. The target can be on Toyota’s back for a while.
GM sold approximately the same number of vehicles as Toyota did last year and lost a pile of money doing it. Meanwhile Toyota racked up the profits. GM’s China sales should be discounted proportional to their ownership stake in the Chinese Joint-Venture, but somehow I bet they counted every unit as a “GM” sale.
GM just sold off it’s medium duty truck division to Navistar. That division sold around 48,000 trucks last year. I wonder if GM will continue counting those as “GM” sales in the future?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aDrqdfv_0th0&refer=news
GM FanBoy Peter De Lorenzo over at autoextremist.com continues to sing from the GM has turned the corner hymnal on his site. Lucky for him he doesn’t allow readers to add their own comments :). De Lorenzo even went so far as to say: “The GM divisional structure is still an impediment, because whenever they want to do a proper launch – like they did for the Malibu – another division suffers.” Wow, calling the Malibu launch proper flies in the face of reason. Big advertising campaign, few vehicle to sell. Hardly a proper launch.
Jthorner, I think De Lorenzo’s take is strictly from his marketing background viewpoint. From his perspective the Malibu is a successful launch because GM properly put adequate advertising muscle and actually had some witty ads. I think his take is correct from that perspective.
I saw that 12-15 years ago Toyota built half as many vehicles as GM. Now they are at parity.
I’m not seeing any reason to expect a major change in the trend.
Autoblog will be disappointed.
The news is just in from Automotive News – when you subtract GM’s JV sales in China with Wuling, Toyota comes out on top by a mile.
http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080124/ANA02/309714026/1078
From the article:
“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.
Automotive News follows industry practice by including sales of only majority-owned subsidiaries in an automaker’s global total.”
Let it be known that I’m not cheering GM’s demise or Toyota’s rise. Just the facts, ma’am.
Why are they so determined to hold this stupid title in the position they are in. Trying to over produce without the demand is what has been sending them down the toilet for all these years. They should quickly be scaling down production to meet demand and then slowly working back up to what they once were, making better use of their time and resources and building up a better and smarter organization. If they can’t let go of this tired old thinking this company is doomed in the future.
I’d say Peter DeLorenzo, as well intentioned as he is, jumped the shark a couple of years back. I still read him every Wednesday, but his relevancy is greatly diminished with the rise of sites such as TTAC with better – and believe it or not – more objective commentary.
Links to Businessweek articles from 2005 about Peter DeLorenzo blasting the D2.801 as well as getting consulting jobs from them:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_30/b3944112.htm
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_30/b3944115.htm
Yeah, if you include Wuling, you have to include Isuzu and Subaru to Toyota’s totals.
Although Automotive News isn’t being exactly accurate. No non-Chinese automaker is majority owner of any car factory in China. They count Cadillacs sold as GMs, even though the factory that makes them is only 49% owned by GM, because Cadillacs elsewhere are sold by a division that is 100% owned by GM. But Wulings are only sold in China, so they don’t count them.
To be fair, you should throw out all of China. But then Toyota beats GM by a whole bunch, since GM is much stronger than Toyota in China.