Toyota Back on Top
Tim Esterdahl | Aug 01, 2012 | Comments 7
Toyota recently released their first-half of 2012 results and they have regained the top spot as the world’s largest automaker once again surpassing General Motors. While this news is impressive, it comes at no surprise.
Toyota has recently announced its sales figures for the first-half of 2012 and it has reclaimed the mantel of largest automaker in the world.
For months now, Toyota has been releasing sales reports that show massive gains in sales versus the previous year. Why are sales booming? Simple, 2011 was a terrible year. The automaker endured a massive Earthquake/Tsnamuni natural disaster in Japan and flooding in Thailand. These events caused massive production and parts shortages that literally caused many dealers to be “out of stock” on Toyota vehicles. Dealers low on inventory plus dealing with a global recession were a double whammy on car sales.
This year has been fundamentally different. Dealers are in stock, the recession is by all accounts ebbing for the auto industry and Toyota is increasing production.
Consumers have been responding as well with thousands of new cars moving off the lot. Sales are growing so fast that a new rail-car shortage issue has become a real problem.
While Toyota’s sales are being driven by passenger cars that have high gas mileages, the truck division is growing as well. Even though the Tundra doesn’t sell as well as the Ford F-150, the truck is a big part of the overall market mix Toyota offers.
With a new Tundra on the horizon, it remains to be seen how well the new truck will compete with Ford.
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Filed Under: Auto News
Regardging Tundra vs F150 sales: when Ford truck sales figures are released they include ALL F series trucks. According to my math, when only consumer F150 sales are considered, the F150 only outsells the Tundra by about 2 1/2 to 1. So, in reality, the Tundra done much better than Ford leads one to believe.
LJC,
Good points. I think the Tundra does a lot better in a true comparison. Yet, I don’t think Toyota is really that concerned about it. The fact they have a vehicle in the product mix in that category is probably just as important. Toyota wants to be seen as a good “every need” car company not just a passenger car company.
-Tim
Agreed.
good point on all consumer F150 vs. all F150 sales only being 2 or 3 to 1. If Toyota gave a 6 grand rebate and basically gave the trucks away like Ford, GM, and Dodge does all the time, they too would sell more tundras. It doesn’t hurt either that GM now does not have Oldsmobile or Pontiac divisions, just Buick, Chevy, and GMC is all. PLus, GM back in 2008 or was it 2009 forced several dealerships, some very big and profitable which made no sense to me locally, out of business and shut the doors on 1,000’s of potential sales.
The real issue in sales still is the loyalty the Big 3 owners have for their products and never willing to switch. I was one of those people from 1990’s to 2007 when I was always buying chevy silverado’s and took a chance in 2007 on my first toyota, a tundra, got sick of GM quality. Not to say the 2007 on up tundra has NO issues which it does, just that from my experience they have less issues overall.
MK,
I don’t see Toyota ever giving big rebates nor getting involved in fleet sales. They simply don’t need to. The Tundra isn’t a big seller for them and they don’t need it to be for them to make money. It will be interesting to watch though, the evolution of the Tundra now that Toyota has given more control of design to North American engineers.
-Tim
agree that the tundra will probably never see big rebates as big as the Big 3. However, in 2008 and 2009 when the gas was over 4 bucks per gallon and trucks were not selling, I think the rebates were as high as 3500 to 4 grand on a tundra. But, the big 3 had 5-7K if not more in rebates like they always do.
No doubt about it, to be competitive now that the big 3 has improved gas mileage over the tundra by 2-4 mpg, they will have to match mpg to stay competitive I think in late 2013 with new model redesign 2014 tundra. Just hope they don’t wimp out the motor to do the mpg increase as GM has done by going to a 3.08 and 3.42 wimpy rear axle ratio.
It does help also that half of the products in this survey are Toyota products. Mohttp://editorial.autos.msn.com/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=250020190&icid=autos_3225st dependable: