REPORT: Toyota passed GM in '06 global sales
by Alex Nunez on Jun 12th 2007 at 11:50AM 
Wuling Sunshine (above): The difference-maker?
CNNMoney.com is reporting that Toyota may have already surpassed General Motors as the #1 automaker in terms of global sales... for 2006. Automotive News has released its annual sales totals, which put GM 128,000 units behind Toyota for last year. Until now, it was widely assumed that GM had retained its #1 spot.
The discrepancy can be traced back to China, where sales of a Wuling "breadbox" microvan were discounted from the GM total by Automotive News. The manufacturer, SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co., is 51% owned by Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. Automotive News credits sales to the majority owner of a given subsidiary, and as a result, the Wuling sales go to SAIC, not GM, and that is enough to give Toyota the top spot. The Detroit Free Press did an informative piece on the Wuling vans and the role they play in the rapidly-growing Chinese market for GM back in April.
According to CNNMoney, GM declined comment on the Automotive News report other than to confirm that it did internally count the sales AN excluded when it published its ranking yesterday. The complete CNNMoney report can be found here, and the Automotive News article can be found here (subscription required).
While the apparent flip-flop in rankings will likely have little to no effect on how anyone involved does business, it's got to irk folks at GM, even though Rick Wagoner and others are on record as saying that retaining the top spot is not a priority. #1 is #1, though. We're sure there'll be more on this in the coming days.
Thanks to Peter for the tip!
[Sources: CNN Money, Automotive News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
bmoredlj 11:56AM (6/12/2007)
Nice 1980s Mitsubishi Wagon with rearranged red diamond logo!
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Brian Dreggors 12:06PM (6/12/2007)
I would like to see Automotive News do a similarly critical breakdown of Toyota sales by all its subsidiaries, which I believe number at 522. Of course, not all of them manufactuer cars, but how are Daihatsu and Hino sales counted etc?
Toyota likes to play quick and dirty with numbers, though. Look at how it has always combined Matrix sales with regular Corolla sedan figures to inflated US Corollas sales totals.
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Dave 12:26PM (6/12/2007)
"Automotive News credits sales to the majority owner of a given subsidiary"
AN does breakdown the sales for all manufacturers this way. Like someone said Subaru won't be included with Toyota and similarly Mazda isn't included with Ford's sales.
Darrell 7:47PM (6/12/2007)
good, high quality car company passes bad car, poor quality company in sales? Yawn... is this news? When your thesis of selling cars is "I sure hope they don't read!!!" (consumer reports, etc) is not a long lasting policy for sustained growth.
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Avinash machado 12:13PM (6/12/2007)
I guess Subaru sales won't be included in the Toyota sales list since Toyota only has a minority stake in Subaru.
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stefan 12:16PM (6/12/2007)
#2
Toyota ownes hino and daihatsu so they count as toyota.
And in Japan the blade and auris are counted with the corolla sales, its been that way sinds the 60's when toyota counted corolla and sprinter sales together.
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Matt 1:14PM (6/12/2007)
Insert random, obligatory comment about GM's quality here.
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colliandat 12:55PM (6/12/2007)
@ Brian Dreggors
Toyota Owns 50% of Hino and 51% of Daihtsu so that is why they are counted as toyota cars. On the other hand GM owns 34% stake in the three party joint venture they run in china. Also, they very model in question is not a GM model and belongs the SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co. which owns 51% of the venture.
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Barney 1:05AM (6/13/2007)
"Toyota Owns 50% of Hino". Are you sure? I was under the impression it was the same company and not partially owned by anyone else. Isn't Hino the truck subsidiary of Toyota?
Steve C 12:58PM (6/12/2007)
Does it really matter anymore -- whether it was last year, this year, or whenever, Toyota's growth will accelerate it so far past GM over the next decade, that GM's history of being "number one" will be a memory.
If only GM would have had a goal of being #1 in product and #1 in quality . . .
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the marais 1:16PM (6/12/2007)
A few points, Steve C.
(1) GM is essentially shut out of the Japanese home market. In case people may have forgotten, Japan is a populous, highly-educated, and rich society with about 128 million people. If GM had 10-15% of that market, they would most likely be on top.
(2) Japan may not win the China market race. Perhaps the reason is historical friction between the two countries, or perhaps upwardly-mobile Chinese people prefer European / American cars. The war between Toyota and GM will be won in the third world.
(3) GM, with a slew of new products, will start winning back the NA sedan market. It may take some years, but they will catch up. The Aura, Malibu, Impala, and G6 are a start, not the finish. If the Volt comes online sometime soon, game over Prius.
(4) GM's Opel Division sells far and away more cars in Europe than Toyota. That is also a market of 300 million plus people.
(5) Quality, eh? Let's wait and see where GM and Toyota are at in 2010, when the Tundra and Camry's medium-term reliability can be gauged against the Silverado and Aura.
(6) GM has some of the best diesel engines in the world (second prob only to the German luxury brands). Let's see if they respond to the Accord Diesel in NA.
Stéphane Dumas 1:41PM (6/12/2007)
Now the next question is how many years Toyota will stay #1 with Hyundai, China and also India coming to the party? In the early 1990s Sony didn't expected to see Samsung and LG coming that fast and the same could arrive to Toyota. http://www.appliancemagazine.com/news.php?article=1071814&zone=0&first=1
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Richard Warren 3:06PM (6/12/2007)
Well, here is something interesting, the numbers would still be in GM's favor had they not cut back on fleet sales. Who took some of those fleet sales? Toyota.
Of course, if GM sells fleet it's awful, if Toyota does it's wonderful. UH-HUH!
Not selling fleet and moving product is counter productive. It's legit business. Stop trying to satisfy whiners GM and sell product.
While Toyota is to be congradulated, they will not retain the number one position anywhere as long as GM did. It just does not work that way anymore.
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tim 10:59PM (6/12/2007)
how do you know Toyota picked up fleet sales? I agree Toyota and The General should move on from here and put out their best product.
rob 5:01PM (6/12/2007)
"Of course, if GM sells fleet it's awful, if Toyota does it's wonderful. UH-HUH!"
tell me who says this is "wonderful". i get it that you're being sarcastic or whatever but i've never seen an import 'fanboy' say good things about fleet sales. i don't think anybody likes to think their car is being rented out somewhere by some company. thats why your comment is stupid and doesn't make sense.
and learn to spell "congradulated".. you're old enough!
Craig 2:14PM (6/12/2007)
"GM, with a slew of new products, will start winning back the NA sedan market. It may take some years, but they will catch up."
GM has also just introduced a slew of new products (Acadia, Outlook, Enclave, Aura, Sky, Solstice, new big SUVs, new full-size pickups, etc.) and it has done little to stem the tide. I don't disagree that GM has a lot of interesting new products coming, but in a lot of respects the shoe has already dropped and the results aren't encouraging.
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Tony 2:16PM (6/12/2007)
@ the marais
It is easier said than done. Nice points...however, I can give 100 reasons of my own why GM will continue to trail Toyota.
But I will reserve my comment and live in the moment for now cos like we all know talk is cheap.
With Toyota making Billions of dollars in profit and changing their products line-up like it is nothing, they will be tough to beat. If it happens, I promise you it will not be GM.
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lt1812@stu.aii.edu 8:23PM (6/12/2007)
omg, yet another post for which I'm ashamed to be Chinese.
That van is such a blatant rip off of Mitsubishi it's not even funny.
Wuling literally means '5 Diamonds' in Chinese.
Mitsubishi literally means '3 Diamonds' in Japanese.
And to add to the blantant rip-offed-ness, they use the exact same hanzi / kanji / chinese characters! The logo being just a rearranged mitsu 3-spoke star was just too much. I'm just speechless =_=
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Barney 1:08AM (6/13/2007)
"omg, yet another post for which I'm ashamed to be Chinese"
Don't be, as the company is also owned by GM. GM may not own it entirely but close to half.
willem 4:13PM (6/12/2007)
Given Japan's racism, it's only a matter of time when China smashes them into humility or North Korea wipes them out. GM's success in China will only continue to grow as they are vastly superior vehicles and don't carry the negative heritage that Japan's vehicles do.
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