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Toyota Surpasses GM in First Quarter Sales

This story, understandably, has been all over the news: For the first time ever, Toyota has surpassed General Motors in global quarterly sales.

The stats:

Toyota’s first-quarter sales rose 9.2 percent to 2.35 million vehicles.
GM’s sales in the same period gained 3 percent to 2.26 million vehicles.

The total number of units sold was a record high for both companies. There are plenty of statistics and figures out there; at this point writers could just be making figures up and we would hardly tell the difference. However, I think Bloomberg nailed down the most significant numbers, especially as far as the US market is concerned:



GM and Toyota - US Market Share
	2000	2007 (1Q)
GM	28.1%	23.1%
Toyota	9.3%	15.6%

That said, let’s look at a roundup of what the experts and analysts had to say, with my humble commentary:

Global Insight analyst Rebecca Lindland:

It’s not about market share and it’s not about world domination, it’s about making a profit. It’s a difficult pill to swallow, but GM really needs to get their house in order and their sales are going to have to drop to do that.

GM is trying to get their house in order, but it will take time to see how well that goes. At least they’ve gotten rid of many of their incentive-based sales tactics. Now let’s see them come out with some new models. Profit? That’s a different story. We’ll have to wait until next year to see if that’s on the way…

Alphex Investments Co. (Tokyo) chief investment officer Ichiro Takamatsu:

Toyota was poised to top GM sooner or later because its momentum is much stronger than GM’s. I’m not worried that this will cause trade conflicts, as Toyota is creating jobs by building new plants in the U.S.

Agreed. Sure, Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow is probably busy drafting new legislation as we speak. And Michigan Representative John Dingell is probably writing a follow-up to his “You Just Don’t Get It” letter that he wrote to George Bush in January (How did that one work out for you?), but really: this won’t be an issue. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits the US tomorrow, and Bush can’t bring it up to Abe, other than to ask him to build more cars in the US rather than having them shipped in as imports - and that is truly ironic (in the malapropic way that we tend to throw that word around these days).

GM spokeswoman in Zurich Julie Hamp:

Rick Wagoner has said that one month or one quarter doesn’t make a trend. They are formidable competitors, but our intention is to maintain leadership.

Rick Wagoner is dead-on 100% right about trends. I wonder if he’s seen the chart posted above in this post? Seven years does make a trend, and that makes the numbers dead-on 100% right as well.

Koji Endo, senior analyst at Credit Suisse Group in Tokyo:

Toyota has been successful in introducing about 10 new models every year, while GM has been slow. GM is slowing down in North America, while in Europe, its Opel brand is weak. The only strong market in Asia at the moment is in China…Everybody on the road expects Toyota to overtake GM in 2007. I won’t say the trend is impossible to reverse but it’s extremely difficult.

Obviously, Koji Endo does not come from the Rick Wagoner school of trend-reading. By the way, Opel cars rock in Gran Turismo 3.

John M. McDonald, a GM spokesman in Detroit:

We’re focused on providing the best cars and trucks for our customers all around the world. We’re not focused on a race.

The second sentence is quite clearly true, from the numbers we’re seeing today. The first one, I’ll take your word for it.

Yale Zhang, the director of greater China vehicle forecasts for CSM Worldwide:

It’s pretty easy for Toyota, in China given Toyota’s brand image, the quality and the design of the cars.

Toyota and design in the same sentence? I bet this guy drives a Supra. No, I bet he drives a Lambo.

Those quotes without links are from the Bloomberg article cited above: Toyota Surpasses GM in Global Sales in First Quarter

By the way, if you’re looking for a quote from me, this should do:

“GM is in serious shit and needs to keep politics out of it as much as possible. GM needs to go back to the days when they built cars that people wanted to buy. The reasons have changed over the years, but find out what those reasons are today and tell your engineers and marketing people fast and build that goddamned car tomorrow and it will sell itself. Toyota, stay quiet and keep doing what you’re doing. Enjoy your time at the top; I’m not sure that GM has.”

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