Toyota managed to surpass the Volkswagen Group and General Motors for the second straight year in the global vehicle sales race, having registered 9.98 vehicle sales in 2013 when including sales from its Scion and Lexus brands as well as those from Hino and Daihatsu. That’s a rise of 2.4 percent on 2012’s result and compares with 9.71 million sales at General Motors Company [NYSE:GM] and 9.7 million at VW.
Toyota is predicting 2014 will be an even bigger year and has forecast sales of 10.32 million units. None of the automakers have revealed their profit levels for the past year, but Toyota did manage to outearn GM and VW for the most recent quarter, according to Bloomberg.
The gap between all three automakers is narrowing, and all three have aggressive model rollout plans for the coming year. While Toyota led GM by about 460,000 units in 2012, this year, the gap has narrowed to about 270,000 units. Meanwhile, the difference between GM and VW this year is less than a 100,000 units.
The U.S. once again accounted for the bulk of Toyota’s sales, registering at 2.24 million for the year, a rise of 7.4 percent. China was the next biggest market, with 917,500 sales all up for Toyota brands. The automaker remains optimistic about both markets for 2014, expecting sales to grow 3 percent in the U.S. to 2.3 million vehicles, while adding 20 percent in China sales to 1.1 million.
_______________________________________
