The Detroit Free Press reports that Toyota has taken GM's position as the top seller of cars in the world. Toyota announced yesterday that it had sold 2.41m vehicles the first quarter of this year, compared to longtime volume champ GM, which sold 2.25m vehicles. Of course, Toyota beat GM in the first quarter of last year only to have the General pull out a narrow victory to hold on to its top spot for the 76th year running. Toyota has surpassed GM in production volume, and with global sales up 2.7 percent this quarter while GM's sales dropped less than one percent, this could well be the year they drive old Dixie down. So to speak. Not that the General would even stand a chance if it had to rely on the American market, where its sales are down ten percent. Curious why the fifth largest corporation in the world is having its lunch eaten? There are a few Deathwatches for that!
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Now Toyota has the target on its back, or, the butterfly tattoo above the crack.
Either one is a bullseye!
You either satisfy your customers or not. I keep hearing that line about Toyota having the burden of being number one and having a target on its back.
Bull
This will neither add a burden to Toyota nor lift a burden from GM.
Raskol,
Your tramp stamp commentary was aces.
I read an article today that said for this first quarter, GM sales NOT in the US was 64% of all sales. See:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080423/gm_global_sales.html?.v=8
quote: A record 64 percent of GM’s sales in the latest quarter came from outside the United States. unquote
They’ll be moving their headquarters in a few years to wherever their best market is and then file chapter 11 for the US only (ala Delphi).
GM DID NOT “pull a narrow victory”, they cheated.
GM added the sales tally from their joint venture in China with Wuling and SAIC. Of which SAIC owns 50.1%. Standard industry practice is that a company must own more than 50% to include the sales figures from that subsidary; that’s why Ford don’t add Mazda’s sales figures to its sales figures, because it only owns 33.4%. So if you look at the sales figures for the past 3 years:
2005
GM – 8,630,985 (8,293,985 without Wuling)
Toyota – 8,232,000
2006
GM – 9,203,248 (8,743,248 without Wuling)
Toyota – 9,018,000
2007
GM – 9,369,524 (8,855,599 without Wuling)
Toyota – 9,366,000
You’ll see that Toyota won the title of “biggest car maker in the world 2 YEARS AGO!
Source = http://forums.motortrend.com/70/6647926/locked-thread-lockbox/gm-is-less-than-honest-with-their-global-sales-fig/index.html
Raskolnikov:
Either one is a bullseye!
Welcome to two years ago. Fact is all this attention on Toyota has made them try EVEN harder, and focus EVEN more than they have been doing before. For example, Toyota’s R&D spending is at record levels right now, and they are also hiring new engineers at an astronomical rate.
Sherman Lin:
You either satisfy your customers or not. I keep hearing that line about Toyota having the burden of being number one and having a target on its back.
Bull
This will neither add a burden to Toyota nor lift a burden from GM.
Agreed.
KatiePuckrik:
GM DID NOT “pull a narrow victory”, they cheated.
The difference in sales between Toyota and GM in 2008 should be big enough that no amount of spin from GM will be able to hold on to the #1 spot for them. It won’t matter much to GM on the face of it, but the fact is it will be a huge blow morally, emotionally, and mentally for GM and much of it’s workforce. Morale could likely drop for workers. Why else has GM tried so hard to hold on to the #1 spot using spin? They say they don’t care, but actions speak louder than words.
Imagine if America no longer had the strongest military power; think of how much of a huge blow to confidence and morale that would be. GM losing the #1 sales title will be a big blow in a similar way.