Broke through

The Japanese automaker became the world's sales leader for the first time in history.

The global car market has seen a new leader: the Japanese Toyota Motor Corp. According to the results of the first quarter of this year, it was possible to push the American General Motors , which had maintained its leadership for 76 years, into second place. The Japanese corporation, having increased by 9.2% the figure for the three months of last year, sold 2.35 million cars. This exceeds the sales volumes of the Detroit automaker by 900 thousand. And analysts have no doubt that Toyota will not allow GM to take revenge in the near future.

Toyota managed to take the first place in the global sales ranking thanks to the growing demand for the fuel-efficient models produced by the company, mainly Prius, Corolla and Camry. The Americans were let down by the decline in demand at home for SUVs and trucks. Toyota first announced its intention to take the world championship in sales volume from General Motors two years ago. But so far she has not succeeded. However, the rise in gasoline prices played into the hands of the Japanese: in the context of constantly rising fuel prices, once extremely popular, especially among Americans, SUVs began to cost consumers too much. Japanese cars turn out to be much less “gluttonous”.

By the way, Japanese cars first gained recognition in the United States during the “gasoline crisis” of the early 80s. Then, as now, fuel prices skyrocketed, making traditional American large-engine cars extremely expensive to operate. But GM, which entered the market in 1908 and achieved primacy in 1930, managed to maintain the world leadership in sales for many years.

Serious trends toward a change in leadership emerged in the global auto industry last year. Then Toyota in the US alone - GM's main stronghold - increased sales by 13%, to 2.54 million cars. Part of this increase was achieved thanks to the launch of a new plant in San Antonio, the Japanese company's sixth plant in the United States. And the company does not intend to stop there: construction of its seventh plant in the United States is already underway - in the state of Ontario, and the launch of the eighth plant specializing in SUVs - in the state of Mississippi - is scheduled for 2010. By the end of this year, Toyota expects to increase car production at its American enterprises by a quarter compared to last year - up to 2 million cars. In addition, the company is building enterprises in Russia, India, China, Thailand and other countries.

This year, Toyota expects to sell 9.4 million cars on the world market, and in 2008 to increase production to 9.8 million cars. Moreover, more than half of them will be assembled outside of Japan.

The main rival of the Japanese concern, GM, has been experiencing serious difficulties in maintaining the market in recent years. At the end of 2005, the corporation suffered a $10.6 billion loss (the official results for 2006 have not yet been announced, but analysts do not expect the situation to significantly improve). To cut costs, GM was forced to resort to staff and production cuts.

In Russia, however, Toyota is still inferior to General Motors in sales. At the end of the first quarter, it sold (including sales of the luxury brand Lexus) 32,096 cars, while GM sales in our country (including sales of the GM-AvtoVAZ joint venture, Opel, Cadillac and Hummer) amounted to 46 for the same period 404 cars.

Anna LANDER