Why does Japan not allow US autos to be imported to their country?

I think what he really mean is profit margin. If you sell 1 billion of good, and make 500 million, that is better than selling 100 billion of goods and making the same 500 million. Porsche is a very small company. For them to be making so much money is a good thing.

Ben

Reply to
Benjamin Lee
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Unions and management are both to blame. The only thing union wants is to make the most money with the minimum amount of work. And they like to keep others from doing their job. My cousin at Ford can't even bring his presentation documents from one building to another, because the union said he is doing their job clasification. Unfortunately, the same hold of management in GM. They make millions because they are friends with the board member. They all pat each other in the back. So down they go in a death spiral. The only thing is management usually makes it out rich while the workers loose their benefits. If I were the union, I would stress survival of the company, and demand a say in decisions.

Ben

Reply to
Benjamin Lee

Porsche operating profit is not 50% of revenue,. According to those same articles I referenced below, Porsche's operating profit is 19% of revenue. Toyota's profit is also 19% of revenue, so profit margins are the same.

Profit margin is a valid comparison only when comparing similar sales. For example, if a child purchases an packet of Kool-Aid for 25 cents and then sells 10 servings for 25 cents each, the child's operating profit is 90% of revenue. Could anyone argue that the child's Kool-Aid sales operation is more profitable than Toyota or even Kraft Foods?

The term "profitable" is not a synonym for profit margin.

The OP's post was erroneous.

Reply to
Ray O

Where did you get 19% profit margin for Toyota? Porsche this year is 19%. That is very high for automotive company. Toyota is 7% this year, or about the same as last year. Porsche last year was 10%, which still beat Toyota. Industry wide, profit margin is about 2-3%. Just do a "profit margin Porsche" on google.

What is your point? No one is comparing Kool-Aid to Porsche here. We are all talking about automotive industry. Where did this Kool-Aid come from? Toyota and Porsche is a somewhat fair comparison. Although Toyota is a huge company compared to botique companies like Porsche. Obviously, if Porsche were to expand their line to be as big as Toyota, they would not have as good a profit margin. Porsche would loose their exclusivity to command such a high price for their car.

Profitable can also mean profit margin depends on how you use it. The word profitable is a very general word, you can use it anywhere. ie Is not profitable for me to continue this discussion. Or is not profitable for me to stay up late tonight. I would not say his argument was simply wrong.

Ben

Reply to
Benjamin Lee

I got 19% from the articles I provided links to, which were snipped out of your post.

I Googled "profit margin porsche" as suggested and the top article from Business Week

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that for a fiscal half year ended January 31, Porsche's profits were $153 million on sales of $3.7 billion or 4.1%. That number sounded too low so I found Porsche's annual report
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2004-2005 income to sales ratio is 18.8%, which is more in line with the other article.

From Toyota Motor Corp's web site showing the first half of FY 2006,

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's operating income ratio is 8.1%.

My point was that comparing profit margins for companies with vastly different sales is not necessarily a valid comparison. Porsche's 90,000 vehicle sales is a little over 1% of Toyota's 8 million vehicle sales.

The OP claimed that Porsche was the "most profitable" car company in the world. No one with any knowledge of the automotive business would agree with that statement. On the other hand, saying that Porsche's profit margins were the best in the industry could be correct.

Reply to
Ray O

Porsche used to be part of the VW-Audi conglomerate. When did they go separate?

Reply to
E Meyer

I'd be amazed by that, considering the UK has fairly strict safety regs and imports japanese vehicles, which are among the safest. Heavy != safe, and likewise safe != heavy.

This is true.

The japanese have far higher emissions issues, unless im misinformed, thats why the UK gets loads of 8-10 year old jap cars - they have to get rid of them as they no longer comply. Also the Japanese have had EFI and cats for as long, if not longer, than most US/UK manufacturers. Their unleaded fuel is as high, if not higher quality, than the US/UK's general fuel. Hence their performance cars are mapped to run on 100 ron fuel, which is equivelent to the US's 94 ron, if not more IIRC.

With the cross posting i can only assume this was a troll?

J
Reply to
Coyoteboy

Reply to
Russ D

The notion that America has wide-open borders and that only nasty foreigners restrict imports is political poppycock?pure disinformation. The average Japanese in an earlier statistic bought $395 worth of American goods, while the average American bought $359 worth of products from Japan. Maybe that?s why protectionists never express the balance of trade on a per-capita basis; they prefer to confuse people with raw, almost meaningless numbers.

Reply to
Herb Ludwig

Perhaps but the difference is the Japanese are buying mostly FOOD from America with all of the dollars they take out of the US, tax free. ;)

mike hunt

Reply to
Mike Hunter

Of course, the Japanese are buying different commodities from the US, as is true of almost all international trade. Honduras, for instance, exports many more Bananas to the US then vice versa. It would be silly to insist on product trade parity and that the US sells as many Bananas to Honduras as it buys. What would be the point of trading! Coming back to the original issue of cars: Toyota is set to become the world's largest manufacturer of cars in 2006. General Motors, the current Nr.1, is positioning itself to regain that title and not by increasing sales in the US, but by making huge investments in China where the growth rates are! Welcome to Global trade!

Reply to
Herb Ludwig

The problem is that the quality of American branded vehicles is no where near the quality of Japanese branded vehicles currently. There are Japanese branded vehicles made in the US and Canada where the quality even surpasses those made in Japan plants so the problem lies elsewhere with US vehicles....

Reply to
Don Valley

"Don Valley" wrote

Agreed. However, the times are gone, when US car manufacturers making unreliable cars could rectify this by calling on -not quality control - but the public relations department! Of late, US manufacturers are trying to close the very real quality gap with Japanese made cars.

Reply to
Herb Ludwig

That may be your opinion that there is quality gap, but the owners questioned by J D Powers disagree. Their latest surveys of new and three year old vehicles show that ALL manufactures have around the same number of problems per 100 vehicles, between just over 1% and just under 3%. Accentually one has a 98% chance of getting one of ANY manufactures 'good' vehicles and around a 2% change of getting ANY manufactures 'problematic' vehicle.

mike hunt

Reply to
Mike Hunter

"Mike Hunter" wrote

Detroit's Big 3 have suffered from a perceived quality disparity with Japan's Big 3 for many years now. And indeed, the gap is closing. Quality at GM has improved 27 percent over the past five years according to J.D. Power's tracking of consumer complaints. The company's Lansing Grand River, Mich. plant, which builds Cadillacs, won J.D. Power's gold award after producing cars with the smallest rates of defects in the country. In fact, GM, Ford and Chrysler all outpaced Toyota and Honda in J.D. Power's overall quality rankings last year, though they trailed Nissan and Volkswagen. However, the much larger based reliability data collected from owners by Consumer Reports for their annual Automotive issue (April) still show a substantial, though decreasing, reliability gap for most domestic models. It can only be hoped that GM can sustain the positive quality trend in the face of losing big on every car they are selling in the US. The 2005 Harbour Report, a well-respected study that examines the North American automobile manufacturing industry, reports the average profit per North American-manufactured vehicle breaking down as follows: ? Nissan: $1,603

? Toyota: $1,488

? Honda: $1,250

? Ford: $620

? DaimlerChrysler: $186

? General Motors: ($2,311)

Reply to
Herb Ludwig

Had me go the dictionary on that one

Reply to
kothdvideo

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