DID YOU KNOW GM PASSED TOYOTA IN GLOBAL SALES?

The third quarter results are out and GM has outsold Toyota again for the second quarter in a row, moving them back into first place for the global sales crown. GM’s third quarter sales came in at 2.38 million units compared to Toyota’s 2.34 million, allowing GM to edge out Toyota for the annual total. The race is close though with GM’s annual 2007 sales at 7.06 million units compared to 7.05 million for Toyota.

GM continues to tell Wall Street analysts that it will not sacrifice profit to keep the global sales crown, and they seem to be sticking to their plan. GM’s sales gains have come with significantly less consumer incentives than the rest of the domestic nameplates. In fact, many of GM’s best selling products have needed no incentives to boost sales. The industry measures the need for incentives by day supply of inventory. If the day supply is low, then incentives are not needed. GM’s Cadillac CTS, GMC Acadia, Buick Enclave and Chevy Corvette have some of the lowest days supply in the industry. These units are literally selling as fast as they come off the car carrier. Later in November, Chevrolet will ship the new Malibu to dealer showrooms. This vehicle is expected compete head to head with or beat Camry and Accord in quality, styling, functionality, safety and fuel economy, and should be GM’s newest hot seller. It will have a 5 star crash rating and will get an EPA estimated 32 mpg highway rating.

GM credits its continued leadership over Toyota to sales in emerging markets. An example of this can be found in China, where GM’s Buick brand is the best selling import in that country. GM actually sells more Buicks in China than in the United States. All of this global sales talk might give one the impression that Toyota comes close to GM in U.S. sales. While Toyota’s market share has increased in America, it seems to be coming more at the expense of Ford and Chrysler than GM. Toyota has suffered three straight months of year over year sales declines while GM has experienced sales increases over the past two months. The best selling vehicle brand in America is Chevrolet. That brand is almost 100,000 units ahead of Toyota and well over 100,000 units ahead of third place Ford. If you add GM’s other U.S. brands, GM out sells Toyota by close to one million units.

Globally, GM is the sales leader in 12 of 15 world markets. They only lose to Toyota in India, Australia and in Japan, where trade restrictions and tariffs discourage imports. Sales leadership shouldn’t really matter that much. Consumers really just want quality vehicles that reliably perform to expectations. Still, the bragging rights stoke the egos of auto executives including this one. I hope you will forgive me.