TOKYO (AP) — Toyota kept its position at the top in
global vehicle sales for the first quarter of this year, outpacing
rivals General Motors and Volkswagen.
Toyota Motor Corp. said
Wednesday that it sold a record 2.583 million vehicles in the
January-March period, putting the Japanese automaker ahead of
Detroit-based GM at 2.42 million and Volkswagen of Germany at 2.4
million.
Toyota’s first quarter sales rose by more than 6 percent
from the same period the previous year. GM’s sales grew 2 percent, while
Volkswagen’s added nearly 6 percent.
Toyota finished first last
year with a record 9.98 million vehicles in sales, remaining the
top-selling automaker for a second year in a row. General Motors Co.
finished second and VW third.
Toyota is targeting sales of more
than 10 million vehicles this year. No automaker has sold that many in a
year. Toyota officials say being No. 1 is not that important, and they
want to be No. 1 in customer satisfaction.
But competition is intense among all the world’s automakers, and clinching the top-selling automaker
crown is not taken lightly.
By
region, Toyota’s first quarter sales grew in Japan as consumers rushed
to buy ahead of a rise in the sales tax, which kicked in April 1. Its
sales also grew in the rest of Asia, the Middle East, South America and
Africa, according to Toyota.
General Motors had been the No. 1 selling automaker for more than seven decades before losing the title
to Toyota in 2008.
GM
retook the sales crown in 2011, when Toyota’s production was hurt by
the quake and tsunami in northeastern Japan. But the maker of the Prius
hybrid, Camry sedan and Lexus luxury model made a comeback in 2012, and
kept that lead in 2013.
GM’s image has taken a hit after a
February recall of 2.6 million vehicles for defective ignition switches,
a defect the company tied to 13 deaths.
GM and the U.S.
government are investigating why it took the company more than a decade
to recall the cars after engineers first learned of the switch problems.
Toyota
also underwent a massive recall debacle in the U.S., announcing recall
after recall starting in 2009. It paid a $1.2 billion earlier this year
to settle a U.S. Justice Department investigation into charges of
covering up problems that caused unintended acceleration in some cars.
From
2010 through 2012, Toyota paid fines totaling more than $66 million for
delays in reporting safety problems. Toyota agreed last year to pay
more than $1 billion to owners of its cars who claimed to have suffered
economic losses because of the recalls. The company still faces wrongful
death and injury lawsuits.
Volkswagen is growing so quickly in China and other relatively new markets it is close on the heels of
its two longtime rivals.
__
Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at twitter.com/yurikageyama
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.