Toyota Production Data Hit Hard in March
Toyota published production and sales results for the 2010 fiscal year. The fiscal is a Japanese oddity. It starts on April 1 and goes through March 31. Financial data will be announced on May 11.
Nothing highly unusual for the full fiscal. Japan is down, overseas is up.
Results for Year Ending March 31, 2011
Unit = one vehicle; figures in ( ) show year-on-year percentage change ToyotaDaihatsuHinoTotalPRODUCTION IN JAPAN*1 Passenger cars2,723,468(-7.4)492,916(-9.1)––3,216,384(-7.7) Trucks & buses280,377(6.0)126,147(-3.3)98,438(27.1)504,962(6.9)PRODUCTION*3
4,338,410(6.5)169,900(43.5)12,019(281.9)4,520,329(7.8)WORLDWIDEPRODUCTION
7,342,255(0.9)788,963(-0.3)110,457(37.1)8,241,675(1.1)*1Includes kits for overseas assembly; *2includes overseas production; *3excludes kits from JapanNow let’s look at March data. In that month, overall Japanese sales had been down 37 percent. But it also was the month when the earthquake and tsunami hit. Now look what that did to Toyota’s Japanese production: Down 63.1 percent. Overseas production down only 2.2 percent (that drop will come later.)
The Tsunami had affected production for the second half of March only. Expect similarly, or possibly worse data for April and May.
MARCH 2011 RESULTSUnit = one vehicle; figures in ( ) show year-on-year percentage change ToyotaDaihatsuHinoTotalPRODUCTION IN JAPAN*1 Passenger cars116,656(-63.4)21,099(-61.2)–—137,755(-63.1) Trucks & buses12,835(-54.6)6,992(-38.3)4,727(-47.3)24,554(-49.5)PRODUCTION*3
412,974(-3.1)14,751(27.1)1,206(33.7)428,931(-2.2)WORLDWIDEPRODUCTION
542,465(-29.9)42,842(-44.6)5,933(-39.9)591,240(-31.3)*1Includes kits for overseas assembly; *2includes overseas production; *3excludes kits from JapanBertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Well, less cars for Toyota to recall. So its not all bad news. However its bad news for GM when they inevitably take the sales crown this year. GM will get no credit for topping sales this year, though they would have done so earthquake or not. TM was only 28,000 cars ahead of GM last year. GM was already gaining in 4Q 2010 with 100,000K more sales. For the first two months(Jan-Feb) of this year, GM sold 100,000 more cars globally than TM. GM outsold Toyota by ~200,000 units in the last 6 months excluding March '11. Include March and the figure jumps to 312,000. GM's growth is outpacing Toyota's in the two largest car markets China, and US. Also, Japanese auto sales were way down pre-quake due to the govt subsidies ending. GM had no presence in Japan to be affected.