Toyota-GM Tie for No. 1 in Global Sales
January 23, 2008

By Michelle Krebs

Toyota and General Motors have tied for the No. 1 spot for global vehicle sales, according to sales figures reported by both companies.

GM, which has held the top spot by itself for 76 years, said Wednesday morning that it had sold 9,369,524 million vehicles globally in 2007, according to preliminary sales figures.

Toyota reported last week it sold 9.37 million vehicles last year. A company spokesman said the automaker will not report figures in any further detail.

So it appears the two automakers have tied.

"The race is too close to call," said Mike DiGiovanni, GM's executive director of global market and industry analysis, in a conference call with media and analysts Wednesday morning. He admitted he didn't know who won the race, having no access to Toyota's detailed numbers. "Of course we'd like to win."

But, he added: "We're in this to run our business for long-term profitablity. We've positioned ourselves well for growing markets. We're laying the foundation to grow where the growth is and to turn things around in the U.S. We want to do the right things to grow the business profitability."

Chasing a sales title, noted DiGiovanni, leads to doing "unnatural things that got us into trouble in the past," including slapping big incentives on vehicles and putting too many vehicles into daily rental fleets in order to keep factories running. Those moves ultimately hurt GM's brands, he said.

Second-Best Year Ever

GM sales worldwide were up 3% in 2007 from 2006, marking the automaker's second best global sales in its 100-year history. (Toyota's global sales, which include those from Hino and Daihatsu, were up 6% in 2007 from 2006.)

Last year marked the third consecutive and fourth time that GM sold more than 9 million vehicles worldwide. GM sold more than 9 million in 2006, 2005 and 1978 as well.

DiGiovanni said GM's 2007 global sales would have been even higher if GM had more capacity, especially for components, in the fast-growing markets, where GM had soaring sales in 2007, of Russia, Latin America especially Brazil, and India. 

Those markets have "tremendous upside" potential in 2008 and beyond, DiGiovanni said, and GM is exploring "alternatives" to increase production capacity there.

DiGiovanni said in Wednesday's conference call that total global growth accelerated in the second half of 2007 from the first half. He said in the first half of the year, global vehicle sales sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 70 million vehicles; the rate of the second half rose to 73 million vehicles. GM rode the wave of that momentum, posting fourth- quarter sales of 2,305,752 vehicles, an increase of 4.8% compared with 2006.

The momentum of the second half of 2007 bodes well for the prospects for 2008. "Overall, the global market remains very strong," said DiGiovanni. "We anticipate global growth of 3.5% in 2008 for an additional 2.8 million more vehicles worldwide."

DiGiovanni predicts another year of global growth of GM this year. "GM is hitting on all cylinders across the globe. 2008 represents another growth opportunity."

Records Set

GM set new sales records in: China, selling more than 1 million vehicles; in Russia, where it doubled sales to more than 258,000 vehicles; and in Brazil, where GM sold a half-million vehicles.

Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:10 AM under Featured | Comments (2) | digg this | Seed Newsvine