Toyota Regains the World's Top Auto Sales Crown

Toyota Motor Corp recaptured the title as the world's largest selling automaker in 2012. Toyota held the global sales crown from 2008 to 2010, but in 2011 it fell into third place behind General Motors and Volkswagen.



Toyota on Monday said that it's tally for global vehicle sales in 2012 soared 22.6 per cent to 9.75 million vehicles. The sell of 9.75 million vehicle is a record for the 75-year-old Japanese automaker. General Motors had been crowned as the top selling auto maker for more than seven decades before losing its title to Toyota in 2008.




In 2011 Toyota's production was hurt by the earthquake in Japan and the floods in Thailand. Moreover the crisis in United states were also affected. While Volkswagen sold 9.07 million vehicles, up 11.2 percent, General Motors sold 9.28 million vehicles in 2012, up 2.9 percent from a year ago.

While the General Motors is the leading automakers in world's largest markets-China and United States, Toyota is the top seller in it's home market of Japan. Due to the limited dealerships, the non-Japanese companies are facing tough competition there.

In the US market Toyota is No.3 and the Ford Motors ranked No.2. In 2010 when the Japanese automaker was hit with recall problems, Ford took that ranking back from Toyota. The recall problems forced the Toyota to stop selling its popular models for some period of time.



"Toyota has fully recovered from the earthquake and natural disasters a year earlier. Japanese car makers, including Toyota, will continue to benefit from an extremely strong US market", said Satoshi Yuzaki, the general manager at Takagi Securities.

The Toyota group also includes sales at Daihatsu Motor Co and Hino Motors Ltd. Toyota's sales alone hit a record-high 8.72 million vehicles, up 22.8 percent on a year ago.

Toyota's domestic rival Nissan Motor Co said that it had sold a record of 4.94 million vehicles globally in 2012, whereas Honda Motor Co sold 3.82 million vehicles, up 19 percent. In 2013 Toyota targets a sale of 9.91 million vehicles group-wide globally, up 1.6 percent from 2012.

Toyota spokesman Steve Curtis said,”While sales volume is important, our goal is to be the No. 1 brand for the customer, not No. 1 in volume. We're grateful for the support of our customers”.



Founded in 1937, Toyota makes some of the world’s most popular vehicles, including the Corolla and Camry. The company said that Toyota would also work with BMW, the world's biggest luxury car maker, to produce a medium-sized sports car and set up partnerships to create fuel-cell systems, lightweight materials and lithium-air batteries.