Toyota takes world sales lead from GM - Autos - MSNBC.com

DETROIT - Toyota has taken the global automotive sales lead from General Motors, selling 2.41 million vehicles to GM’s 2.25 million during the first three months of the year.
GM said Wednesday its first-quarter sales dropped across the globe by less than 1 percent, but Toyota said its sales were up 2.7 percent during the January-March period.

He said the company is more focused on turning around its North American operations and becoming profitable worldwide than it is on beating Toyota.

Some analysts say it’s only a matter of time before Toyota — which built its business in the decades after World War II by imitating American automakers — overtakes GM in terms of annual global sales as well as production

Honda Motor Co., Japan’s No. 2 automaker, said its global production rose 4.5 percent from a year ago to 1.02 million vehicles in the January-March quarter.
Nissan Motor Co. said its global output rose 9.4 percent from a year ago to 950,878 vehicles during the quarter.







nothing said about ford

 

As globalization brings wealth to China, and 1.3-billion Chinese (not to mention another billion Indians) start being able to afford cars as easily as Americans, they'll buy Japanese cars preferentially because they still have the self-respect we oh-so progressive westerners lost ages ago, and GM and Ford will live in the shadow of a gargantuan named Toyota. Give it 50 years.

 

yeah that about sums it up

 

Actually, China hates Japan. During WW2 Japan occupied China. Even to this day, China is still angry with Japan over what happen in WW2 and they are still laying claim to a small cluster of islands to the north of Japan that used to be part of China, but were taken over by Japan during WW2 and were never given back to China.
A few years ago there were a lot of protests in China because the then Prime Minister of Japan visited the Yasukuni Shrine on an almost daily basis. Yasukuni is a momument dedicated to Japan's WW2 dead.
Toyota has really struggled in China because even to this day, a lot of Chinese remember what happened during WW2 and dont want anything to do with Japan.
A lot of people in China actually prefer American cars because in a lot of ways they still do idolize America as the life they want for themselves. They view American cars as having prestige and class and thats why GM has been able to do really well in China.

 

You don't believe they like the USA do you?

 

I wouldnt say that they like us, but in a lot of ways they do envy our way of life and want to be like us.
By owning American cars, they are in a way living that life and a lot of them do view American cars as a sort of status symbol.