On Tuesday Toyota forecast that its sales will rise 7 per cent next year, to 8.03m units. It also pledged to sell 8.5m units in 2006 - or the same as GM.
Moreover, in the metrics that truly matter to investors, Toyota is already way ahead. In the first nine months of this year, its profits were almost as high as the "Big Three" US carmakers combined. Meanwhile margins were about twice as big - not least because Toyota, unlike the Big Three, has not offered hefty sales incentives in the US, where it now holds a 12 per cent market share.
This is why earlier this year I sold the last of the GM stock I had been holding onto and bought Toyota ADRs.
The Toyota ADRs have appreciated nicely while the GM stock has continue to slide.
Sad really, but the game is playing out and it is not playing out well for the two remaining US based auto makers.
GM's only good news is that Ford will probably be out of the automobile business before GM is. Both will keep making trucks for years to come, but even there the news is not good.
Probably the only business hope for Ford and GM is to go through Chapter 11 reorgs like the airlines and jettison all of their historical pension and healthcare liabilities along with union contracts.
Me too. The way GM treated me as a customer was what prompted me to sell my GM stock. I knew that any company that treats the customer as a ememy rather than a partner is in for long term trouble.
Not surprised.
Hopefully it isn't played out yet...although it's probably close.
Perhaps, but bad news for the US if either suffers that fate.
So tell us why you think their sales keep increasing. But lets recap what was stated earlier. Toyota sales keep increasing every year. Toyota doesn't need to discount vehicles like the american manufacturers to sell their vehicles. Now you state that their service sucks. But the botom line is their sales figures keep going up. Yep, sure sounds like you know what you're talking about.
Dunno...never owned a Toyota personally. I do know several people that do, but they don't seem to complain at all about service or support...at least not that I've noticed.
That should tell you a lot about surveys. I have owned a hell of a lot of different domestic and foreign vehicles in my time. I only ever had one that was problematic, yet I see surveys that suggest one brand is supposedly 'better,' based on the ONE somebody complained about, that they had owned. Such surveys never seem to quantify those that are serviced properly or not. Surveys of older models do not distinguish between those purchased new or used. One who buys a used vehicle can never know for sure how it was used or abused, or if it was maintained properly or not. Naturally if they have problem, they blame the manufacture, never the previous owner(s)
In our business we service thousands of just about every brand of vehicle, every week. Vehicles that are driven to higher mileage's, is shorter periods of time, than by the average new car owner. What we see is virtually little difference among brands, other than style and price, when given proper preventive maintenance. Every manufacture today is building good vehicles. Just as every manufacture today is building some of them that are not so good, on occasion. That is why they all have a warranty. To chose a new vehicle of one brand over an other based on the one that somebody else owed several years ago is a bit foolish in my opinion.
For me the most important thing I look for is good dealer service. The difference in the drive home price from dealer to dealer of the same brand is generally similar. The attitude of the dealership toward me as a customer was the reason I switched from Lexus, to a domestic luxury brand, in 1999 after owning several Lexus'.
2009 was for the US market for passing D.C. By 2007 Toytota will be the worlds largets auto manufacturer. And actually statistically there is a good chance that it will be 2006.
GM's CEO when told of this was quoted as saying he doesn't doubt it will happen. I'll try and find the link to his exact quote in the Detroit Free Press newspaper.
Because GM's world wide (and US) market share has fallen in 18 of the past 20 years and will again fall this year and probably next, Toyota should overtake GM in 2006 instead 0f 2007.
What does this say about GM, will they admit how badly they've been mismanaged into producing junk? Do we need another 'Road to Redemption' campain which not only admits bad quality, but also poor management and laziness?
It is all very sad. One of the many things Toyota has not done is to distract itself with crazy schemes like buying, then selling EDS, buying, then selling Hughes and so on. Toyota has been absolutely relentless in focus and execution. Toyota also does not play the game of endless executive hiring, firing, promotion and demotion with which the inbred Detroit high paid "talent" pool wastes time and money on.
Toyota does not have to deal with US corporate tax laws or US tort laws. GM pays million in US federal Corporate taxes. Toyota does NOT pay a penny in US federal Corporate taxes on the millions it makes annually on the cars and truck they sell in the US that they import, or assemble here in the US. You never see the shark lawyer suing a Japanese corporation in the US. That is because they can only be sued in Japan and their tort laws are not as nuts as those in the US. Toyota also pays their employees less, provides less desirable benefits and pensions even thought their vehicles cost 20% to 30% more than the similar size and equipped GM models. Even when Toyota does assemble some cars in the US like the Camry, they assemble them primarily of lower cost parts imported from places like China, not from parts made mostly in the US as does GM. In the not too distant future Toyota will import the Tacoma from Mexico and stop making it in the GM/Toyota plant in California. How long do you think Toyota will assemble the Camry in the US of Chinese parts when they get their new Chinese plant finished? It will be cheaper to build the Camry in China rather than making the part there and bringing them to the US for assembly as they do now. We in the US better soon wise up and buy American or everything we buy will be made overseas, including all of the domestic brands. You don't think GM and Ford will go out of business, when they too can build for less in China as well, do you?
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