In The First Quarter, Toyota Is Number One
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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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