Toyota In September: Bigger, But Could Do Better
So, this weekend has been crowned “ Sexual exploitation” weekend? See what happens when you put a German in charge? If you can pull your eyes away from the scantily clad ladies, who have nothing between their ears, except for the photographer’s tongue, and look at a calendar, you’ll see that October is upon us. The beginning of a month. What could that mean? It’s the monthly sales figures! Which leads us to Toyota.
The Wall Street Journal reports that ToMoCo’s US sales have jumped 17 percent for the month of September. Toyota branded vehicles jumped 21 percent while Lexus branded vehicle dropped 5.5 percent. That latter news takes Lexus one step closer to losing their “number one luxury brand in the US” title this year. In September, Toyota sold 147,162 vehicles, up from 126,015 units this time last year. Another big factor is the incentives which Toyota is still offering. But if I can get hold of the incentive figures, we’ll compare them against industry standard. So, a good month for Toyota? Not when the rest of the market grows by 29 percent. You can grow as much as you want: When the others grow more, you lose.
More by Cammy Corrigan
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You DO realize, don't you, that I really don't care what's between their EARS?
The trend that should be worrisome for Toyota is market share. Their's has slid from 16.9 last year to 15.4 this year, according to Wards. Honda has stayed flat, Nissan is up a bit, Hyundai up a bit more. Ford gained 2 full percentage points. Up is always better than down, but it looks like Ford, the Koreans and Nissan are nibbling away at Toyota's lunch.
Nice pic...Fullmetal Alchemist. I wonder if there is a it of irony in here?
According to "edmunds", Toyota's incentives were lower than industry average. GM, Ford, Chrysler and Nissan had much higher incentives. And that does impact sales numbers. Another factor is the miserable way Toyota's dealerships used to treat potential customers during the boom years. That being said, Toyota's low sales number is mainly the result of Lahood's witch hunt.