Toyota warded off Volkswagen to remain the world’s top-selling vehicle maker for a third consecutive year, driven by record US deliveries of its sport-utility vehicles (SUVs).
Worldwide sales for Toyota, including its Hino Motors and Daihatsu units, climbed 3 percent to 10.23-million vehicles last year, Toyota said in a statement.
Volkswagen (VW) last week reported a 4.2 percent sales gain to 10.14-million vehicles, including its two heavy-truck units. General Motors (GM) followed with 9.92-million sales, up 2.1 percent.
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Surging demand for SUVs including the compact RAV4 and mid-size Highlander paced Toyota’s US market share gain last year, spurring plans to boost local production and exports from Japan in 2015.
As VW and GM add factories to bolster their already-dominant position in China, president Akio Toyoda’s strategy to forgo building new car plants until at least next year could result in the first shakeup in vehicle sales leadership since 2011.
“Their focus is not (on) number one,” Moody’s Investors Service vehicle credit analyst Peggy Furusaka said. “Toyota is more concerned about keeping profitability than chasing numbers. So for coming years, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Toyota selling fewer cars than VW.”
Toyota forecasts a 1 percent decline in annual sales to 10.15-million vehicles this year, the Japan-based car maker said.
Toyota was predicting a decline in sales this year because of an expected slump in demand in Japan, where the consumption tax increase last year had brought forward many purchases, spokeswoman Kayo Doi said.
Last year, Toyota’s sales gained in the US, Europe, China and Brazil while deliveries in Thailand and Indonesia slumped, the company said.
