Japanese Toyota hijacked the best-selling throne for the most sold new vehicles in the world’s second largest car market, the United States, from the American competitor General Motors (GM) in 2021, reports Reuters.
It is the first time since 1931 that GM does not top the sales list for new vehicles in the domestic market.
Toyota sold 2.33 million vehicles in the United States last year, compared to GM’s 2.22 million. The Japanese increased sales by 10 percent, while GM’s sales decreased by 13 percent for the whole of 2021, and fell as much as 43 percent in the fourth quarter. In comparison, GM sold 2.55 million units in 2020, Toyota sold 2.11 million and Ford boasted 2.04 million units sold.
The Japanese carmaker, however, does not expect to keep first place for very long, and it has no plans to use the top position in any form of marketing, according to the company’s vice president Jack Hollis.
Awaiting recovery
GM stated on Tuesday that it expects growth in the US economy to boost sales of new cars from around 15 million units in 2021, to around 16 million in 2022. In the period from 2015-2019, average sales were 17.3 million units.
IHS Markit expects a sales increase of almost 15.5 million units, while Toyota believes sales will increase to 16.5 million in 2022, and that their own sales will end at 2.4 million units.
“If you asked me to predict last year in January 2021, I would have missed out completely because of the semiconductor crisis. But it has really meant that we have to sharpen up “, says sales manager Randy Parker for Hyundai Motor America, to Reuters.
“I am very optimistic for 2022,” he added.
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