[vasudeva]

Here is an interesting article from Fortune March 2006 about the birth of Prius, and how GM and Nissan scoffed at hybrids, while Toyota ran away with the market:
The Birth of the Prius - March 6, 2006

Here are the US sales figures for 2005 and 2006 for some major hybrids:

Ford:
Escape: 15575 19375
Mariner 369 3174
Honda:
Accord 16826 5598
Civic 25864 31253
Insight 666 722
Toyota:
Camry 0 31341
Prius 107987 106971
Highlander 17989 31485

GM has now woken up and launched the Saturn Vue Green Line in late 2006 with plans for additional hybrid vehicles that will debut in the next few years. GM will introduce four hybrids in 2007 — the Saturn Aura Green Line, Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid, and Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon 2-Mode Hybrids.

[amit]

Toyota Motor Corp, the world's largest automaker by market value, forecast its smallest profit increase in a decade because of slowing growth in the US and investments in new factories.

Toyota predicted sales gains in North America will slow to 1.6 per cent this year from 15.1 per cent.

Source: The Economic Times.

[rahul_intlad]

You cant expect to keep on repeating record performances:

Japanese auotmaker Toyota became the first Japanese firm to top the 2 trillion yen line in profits. The world’s second largest automaker gained from improved sales in the European and North American markets. Toyota’s operating profit for the 2006 business year jumped 19.2 percent from the previous year to 2.24 trillion yen.
The company has now become the first Japanese firm to top the 2 trillion yen line in operating profits. Toyota however gave a modest forecast for the current year through next March.
They are now anticipating only a slight increase in profits due to an expected slowdown in North American market growth.

Source:
Toyota posts record profits

[vasudeva]

[quote=vasudeva;427428]Although these are 3 month figures, Toyota in 2006 shot past DaimlerChrysler (one of the original Big 3) in US sales. In 2007 it is likely to surpass Ford in the US and GM globally. The final frontier would be outselling GM on GM's home turf. If Toyota keeps adding US volume and GM keeps losing it at the same pace as in 2006, it could take place before 2009-10. the end of the decade. In 2006, GM sold 4.07 million in US but Toyota sold 2.54 million. That is a gap of 1.52 million, but Toyota closed a 1.6 million unit gap with Ford in three years. In US, GM's leadership over Toyota has shrunk from 3296552 in 2000 to 1522816 in 2006. Ford had a 2584995-unit lead over Toyota in 2000. That was down to 358565 in 2006. DaimlerChrysler was 1109103 units ahead of Toyota back in 2000 but was 151940 units behind in 2006.

As had been predicted, during May 2007, Toyota overtook Ford in terms of monthly US vehicle sales and now trails GM only in the US. In May 2007, Ford sold 250,000 vehicles, compared with around 269,000 for Toyota and 371000 for GM. GM's top seller is the Chevy Silverado pick-up, which was the No.1 selling vehicile in the US during May 2007at nearly 64,000 units.

Three of the top 10 selling vehicles during May 2007 were Toyotas. The Camry sold 50,000 units, up 12%. The Corolla sold 45,000, up 5%, and the Prius sold 24,000 units, up 185%.

[vasudeva]

Amongst the big 6 US car makers, For 5 months ended May 2007 in the US, toyota's sales increased 7.6% to 1085335 even as sales declined for GM, Ford and Nissan, but increased slightly for Chrysler and Honda. While Corolla increased 2.8% to 165722, Camry increased 8.6% to 193900.Prius increased 98% to 76747.

During Jan-May 2007, GM's US sales declined 3.2% to 1577053. Ford's May 2007 are not yet availabe but sales for Jan-Apr 2007 were down 13.2% to 871583.Chrysler Group reported 1% increase during Jan-may 2007 to 692025.

Honda's May 2007 sales are not yet available. During Jan-April 2007, Honda's US sales increased 1.6% to 480627. Accord up 11.9% to 121516, Civic down 11.3% to 97295. Honda is reported to pushing Accord to clear it ahead of expected new launch for 2008 (expected in Sep/Oct 2007). Rounding off the big 6 is Nissan which reported a 0.3% decline in Jan-May 2007 sales to 389929.

[appuchan]

I read somewhere that Honda is stopping making Accord Hybrid since it could not compete with Prius.

[vasudeva]

Yes, the Accord Hybrid has not sold much in the US. While the regular Accord sells well around 3 lakh units the Hybrid accounted for a paltry 25,000 total units over the three model years it was offered. (By comparison, Prius sold over 7 lakhs). Thus, Honda is pulling the plug on Hybrid. It failed because it was a performance hybrid, when not many buyers were looking for V8 performance along with the fuel economy of a regular four-cylinder, particularly when the benefits are incremental. The Accord Hybrid also had no spare tyres, and rear seat did not fold down. Now Honda is planning to launch a diesel Accord that is reported as giving more than 45-50 mpg. It is based on 2.2 i-CTDi.

[volkman10]

Toyota retains world's top selling automaker position -2013

Toyota, has once again outsold its closest competitor General Motors in the sales for the first nine months of this year. The company sold 7.41 million vehicles, little change from the previous year, but leaving General Motors behind to keep its lead as the world's top-selling automaker.

General Motors announced that it sold 7.25 million vehicles in the period of nine months, January to September 2013. The company managed to get a growth rate of 4.6 percent from a year earlier.


http://www.cardekho.com/india-car-ne...tion-11581.htm

[FINTAIL]

Originally Posted by volkman10

Toyota retains world's top selling automaker position -2013

Toyota, has once again outsold its closest competitor General Motors in the sales for the first nine months of this year. The company sold 7.41 million vehicles, little change from the previous year, but leaving General Motors behind to keep its lead as the world's top-selling automaker.

General Motors announced that it sold 7.25 million vehicles in the period of nine months, January to September 2013. The company managed to get a growth rate of 4.6 percent from a year earlier.


http://www.cardekho.com/india-car-ne...tion-11581.htm

Well, Toyota deserved it! What with their legendary reliability and After Sales-Service!

However, I must say, I am quite impressed by the American Major, General Motors!

High time, Volkswagen takes notice. If anyone truly deserves to be the world number 1, Volkswagen does!

Top Work, again, Toyota!

Cheers!
Fintail/Heckflosse!

[volkman10]

In 2016, Volkswagen overtook Toyota as the world’s highest-selling car manufacturer, but a deep diver into last year’s sales figures, Toyota is actually the highest selling brand in 49 countries, well clear of its competition.

In a distant second comes Volkswagen, topping the sales charts in just 14 countries, mostly concentrated in European states.

Coming in third position is Ford, which has managed to claim key markets like the U.S., Canada and New Zealand.

In fourth sits Renault and Skoda with six countries respectively and Dacia and Fiat both sitting on five countries apiece.



link

[swiftdiesel]

Interesting Observations from the Map:

Curious to find Hyundai ending up top dog in Ireland while the rest of Europe is populated by European brands. Wonder why.

Also, the similarity in tastes between the Nordic countries of Norway and Sweden (VW) and Finland standing apart and aligned with Estonia with VW's sister brand, Skoda is interesting. I've always felt Finland had more in common with Estonia than Sweden and I see a similar pattern here.

Also interesting to find the Danes warming up to the Pug in a VW dominated territory.

The Mercs' dominance in Turkmenistan is a bit weird.

Toyota's dominance is unparalleled. Perhaps this invincibility has made them a lethargic and boring brand albeit having a great reputation.

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by swiftdiesel

Toyota's dominance is unparalleled. Perhaps this invincibility has made them a lethargic and boring brand albeit having a great reputation.

Absolutely, I've sat in the new Corolla and new Innova.. nothing special and at prices that'd give one acidity for a few weeks. It seems that high sales is directly related to declining quality. VW is pulling the same stunt since their transition to modular platform sharing (everyone reported at that time that the prev gen models had way better feel-good quality). Suzuki is an undisputed leader in India but I feel their quality has tailspun and how, the Maruti 800 we used to own (the dabba squarish early 90's model) was once hit by a bike at quite a decent speed when parked outside the house (25+ kms) and only had a minute dent of a square inch in one particular area..very impressive. Today people say that the Baleno/Ciaz develops dimples just by a press.. LOL. Surely the 800 was better as I used to sit on the bonnet/lean on the sides as a kid and I weighed atleast 30 kgs if not more.

I always buy models that sell less, even Suzuki's flop models like SX4 (rebadged Fiat), old Baleno and Kizashi were much better built. Unfortunately the fans of every respective brand don't seem to rely on truth as much as they do.. their own partiality towards/against something.

That said, take away USA and Toyota will fall and how.

[swiftdiesel]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

....the Maruti 800 we used to own (the dabba squarish early 90's model) was once hit by a bike at quite a decent speed when parked outside the house (25+ kms) and only had a minute dent of a square inch in one particular area..very impressive. Today people say that the Baleno/Ciaz develops dimples just by a press.. LOL. Surely the 800 was better as I used to sit on the bonnet/lean on the sides as a kid and I weighed atleast 30 kgs if not more.

Yes, I have similar stories from back then. Maruti was very reluctant initially to go the diesel route. Eventually when they decided to go diesel, it was a case of too little too late. This is why Maruti is stuck with Fiat's 1.3. Their petrol engines are good enough and even better but the same cannot be said about their diesel. Today, Maruti is trying to compete with the smallest diesel engine in segments where the competition provides bigger and better performing engines. The only way to compensate (to a certain extent) this blunted performance is to shave the weight off of every inch of sheet metal and make them as light as possible. The result? Wafer thin build quality that's just about barely enough. Thanks to their light weight built models, the power to weight ratio becomes at par or better than their competitors. You will find this thought echoed in our official reviews. I reckon this trend will continue at MSIL until they have access to bigger and better performing diesels.

[vvijay]

Originally Posted by volkman10

In 2016, Volkswagen overtook Toyota as the world’s highest-selling car manufacturer, but a deep diver into last year’s sales figures, Toyota is actually the highest selling brand in 49 countries, well clear of its competition.

Look at Toyota's penetration into lot of emerging countries in APA and how ! That simply reveals Toyota's thirst to not only become but also sustain as the #1 Giant in the Auto Industry.

Interesting to learn that Bolivia & Hungary also hugs Suzuki other than the Indian subcontinent !

And seriously, Hyundai leads Russia and Ireland?

[volkman10]

Toyota beats Volkswagen to become world's No.1 car seller.

Toyota group tops global auto sales in 2021 for 2nd straight year

Toyota retains global sales crown, expands lead over VW on chip crisis management.



Toyota gained on rivals as it managed to avoid lengthy production shutdowns by carefully managing microchip procurement and navigating supply chain bottlenecks.

Toyota said it sold nearly 10.5 million vehicles globally last year, including those produced by the group's minivehicle maker Daihatsu Motor Co. and truck manufacturer Hino Motors Ltd., up 10.1 percent from a year earlier.

But the Japanese auto giant has struggled to return to normal production levels as it continues to face supply chain constraints due to the spread of COVID-19 in Southeast Asia, announcing a temporary closure of domestic factories earlier this month.

Its sales bounced back from an 11.3 percent decline in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and only fell short of its record sales in 2019 by 250,000 vehicles.

Rival Volkswagen's global sales fell 4.5 percent last year to 8.88 million vehicles due to the global chip crunch.

In 2021, the Toyota group sold 2.11 million vehicles including minicars in Japan, down 2.2 percent from the year before, while global sales rose 13.8 percent to 8.39 million units.

Toyota alone sold 9.62 million vehicles globally, up 10.6 percent, while its production fell 1.5 percent from a year earlier to 2.88 million units.

Link