Who Benefited From Toyota's Woes?

When Toyota stumbled there were (muted) shouts of glee around the car producing world. “Yay! They fell flat on their face! Let’s pick up the pieces.” Well, nobody said it openly, but action speaks louder than words: Ford and Hyundai revved up their “quality” aspects (wink, wink) GM and Chrysler fired up their incentives (it’s all on the taxpayers, so who cares?) Ford and Hyundai said “to hell with subliminal messages” and followed with the money. Even Nissan couldn’t help themselves and offered a bounty to deserting Toyotaphiles. February came and went and Toyota only registered a 9 percent drop (year on year after the carpocalypse). This was quite confusing. Especially given the fact that production had been halted and dealer stock was quarantined until fixed. Analysts had predicted double digit drops and were surprised themselves. Everyone had expected something out of a George Romero film to happen to Toyota. So, suddenly, this turns into an Agatha Christie story. “Who benefited from Toyota’s stumble”?

From Korea, The Chosun reports: “It wasn’t us!” They say they expected Hyundai-Kia to snap up absconding Toyota customers, but as they put it: “Hyundai and Kia, which were initially expected to be the greatest beneficiaries of Toyota’s woes, saw their sales in the U.S. rise 10 percent in February on-year, less than the 13 percent overall market growth seen that month. The sales results show that the Korean carmakers still need to do more to win over U.S. consumers. Declines in sales at Toyota translated directly into rising sales of similar car models at Ford, Nissan and Chrysler, but not at Hyundai and Kia.”

The Chosun posits that it must be Ford and GM who benefited from Toyota as Ford’s figures shot up 43 percent and GM’s rose 32 percent. But this doesn’t sit well either. As our Lord Niedermeyer reported, Ford’s fleet sale rose 74 percent and GM’s grew 114 percent. This accounts for the majority (but not all) of Ford and GM’s growth. Not to mention GM loaded up on leasing, too. So, now things are extremely hazy. If Hyundai-Kia and Ford didn’t win retail customers over with their quality and GM and Chrysler didn’t woo customers with their incentives, then who did? The most likely candidate would have to be Toyota’s cross town rival, Honda. With the Accord shooting up 41 percent, its close image to Toyota and even Acura growing through its CUV’s, it would seem that they are the main beneficiaries of Toyota’s woes. But until they break out those fleet sales, we can never be sure.

While Toyota has their feet dragged across hot coals in the United States, elsewhere around the world, Toyota’s problems aren’t as bad as they seem. In Australia and Canada, Toyota’s sales have reached record highs. In the UK, Toyota’ sales fell only 5 percent. Which isn’t bad, when you consider that Toyota doesn’t really have a loyal fanbase here, and what is here is fickle and prone to abandon their prior purchase in a heartbeat. Couple this with the facts that Toyota’s incentives were low (in comparison to the competition) for February 2010 and that they plan to ratchet them up for the following months, and you have an interesting next few months ahead. Is it time to start up a “Toyota Deathwatch”? Not yet, let’s see how the next few months go.