Toyota Motor most selling brand consecutively third year in a row

Toyota Motor said on Monday that it sold 9.56 million vehicles globally from January to November, matching its sales during the same period in 2021 and putting it on course to surpass Volkswagen and take the top spot in the market for a third consecutive year.

When group companies Daihatsu Motor and Hino Motors are included, the Japanese automaker outsold Volkswagen by 2.14 million vehicles. 

To surpass Toyota for the entire year, the German automaker, whose sales during that time period plummeted 9% year over year, must more than treble its 2022 monthly sales average in December.

Toyota seems to have a good chance of defeating Volkswagen even without group auto sales

Toyota's performance this year was strong in China and Southeast Asia, but the industry as a whole struggled to satisfy demand as problems like the worldwide chip shortage slowed manufacturing.

Toyota's parent-only sales in China, excluding Daihatsu and Hino, increased by 2% as the manufacturer tapped a recovery in demand that had been slowed by the coronavirus outbreak thanks to a summer capacity boost. Camry and Corolla sedan sales were particularly strong.

In Southeast Asia, where Toyota reported double-digit growth in Thailand and Indonesia, sport utility vehicles were widely used.

Sales for Volkswagen in Asia were down 6% in China and only up 6% in the rest of the Asia-Pacific region. The automaker's main Wolfsburg facility in northern Germany's output was even affected by China's coronavirus lockdowns, which hampered component supplies and marine commerce.

Volkswagen sells almost 40% of its new cars in China, whereas Toyota, which joined the market later, sells 20% of its vehicles there. The impact of the lockdowns and chip supply problems, though, was likely mitigated by Toyota's lesser scale of operations there.

This year's sales of new automobiles are expected to increase, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. However, until recently, the government's strict zero-COVID regulations prevented some dealerships from operating and prompted automakers to change their manufacturing schedules.

The easing probably had an impact on Toyota and Volkswagen's December results. However, the recent spike in COVID-19 cases across China may impede consumption starting in January.

Toyota had challenges in North America and Japan, where sales declined by around 10% in each country due to a shortage of chips. It affects the availability of high-performance vehicles that depend heavily on them. Sales for Volkswagen fell 7% in western Europe, where it is based.

Oliver Blume, who took over as Volkswagen's CEO in September, predicted that challenges to the company's supply networks would become the norm rather than the exception.

Electric vehicle Sales

In the field of electric vehicles, which is predicted to be a future sector of industry growth, Volkswagen is still well ahead of Toyota. In the first three quarters of 2022, the German carmaker sold 360,000 electric vehicles, up 25% from the previous year. Toyota's first mass-produced electric vehicle, the bZ4X, sold fewer than 20,000 units and required a recall.

Toyota had anticipated producing 9.7 million vehicles during the fiscal year that ended in March. Last month, the company revised this estimate downward by 500,000 units to account for its ongoing semiconductor shortage.

There have been indicators of progress. Last month, Toyota's global output reached a record for November, up 1% year over year. Toyota would be able to eliminate delivery delays and work through its order backlog if manufacturing returned to normal.

One of the executives of a parts supplier claimed that "the worst of the chip scarcity has passed."

S&P Global predicts that global sales of new passenger cars would increase by 6% to 83.6 million in 2019, although it believes that the chip shortage will continue to have an impact at least through 2024.