Tuesday, January 04, 2022
Slump in the home market
Toyota overthrows GM
No automaker brought more vehicles to customers in the United States than Toyota in the past year. This broke the decades-long dominance of the US company. The reaction from Detroit is a declaration of war. The new number one, however, thanks the customers.
For the first time in 90 years, the automaker General Motors is no longer the market leader in the USA. The Detroit-based company sold 2.2 million cars in 2021 as a whole, making it only number two. The top position was taken by the Japanese manufacturer Toyota with a total of 2.3 million vehicles sold. In 2020, GM was still far ahead.
The reason for the change at the top is the lack of chips: This hit GM hard, with car sales falling by 13 percent for the year as a whole. Toyota, on the other hand, got through the crisis better than many other car manufacturers and was able to increase sales in the USA by a good ten percent. Shaped by the experiences after the Fukushima disaster, the Japanese have been relying on higher stocks for years and have thus been able to cushion the distortions in the supply chain better than the competition.
Accordingly, the change at the top of the market is unlikely to last, said Jessica Caldwell, auto analyst at Edmunds. She pointed out that GM has a wider range and unites more brands than the Japanese. GM has been the undisputed number one in the US market since 1931, according to data from the industry journal “Automotive News”. At that time, the company had ousted Ford from its throne.
More expensive than ever
GM, under the leadership of Mary Barra, has recently placed profitability over volume and withdrawn from loss-making markets such as Europe or Russia. A GM spokesman also pointed out that sales of profit generators such as large SUVs or pickup trucks are strong. As soon as the supply situation with chips improves, overall sales will pick up again. “If I were Toyota, I wouldn’t get a winning tattoo right now,” he said.
Toyota took the victory in the race for the top position accordingly calmly: The company was “grateful” for its loyal customers, said top manager Jack Hollis, but it was not a priority to become number one.
Overall, experts estimate that around 15 million cars will be sold on the US market in 2021 – between 2015 and 2019 the average was 17.3 million. At the same time, car buyers are prepared to pay significantly higher prices. According to calculations by Edmunds analysts, new cars cost an average of $ 45,872 in November – almost $ 6,000 more than in November 2020 and more than ever before.