Toyota overtakes Ford as world's No.2 automaker

Reuters / January 26, 2004

TOKYO -- It's official: Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. has unseated Ford Motor Co. as the world's second-biggest automaker. The long-anticipated switch came as the U.S. Big Three lost customers to Japan's top automakers in their own backyard last year, and as Toyota drove aggressively into the red-hot Asian car market, a weak spot for U.S. makers.

Toyota is steadily marching towards its goal of grabbing 15 percent of the global car market some time in the next decade, from about 11 percent now. That share could put Toyota ahead of General Motors, which said it had 14.7 percent in 2003.

Toyota said on Monday its group -- which includes truck maker Hino Motors and minicar maker Daihatsu Motor -- sold 6.78 million vehicles last year, up 10 percent from 2002 as it boosted its presence in every major car market.

That was 60,000 more than the 6.72 million vehicles sold by the family of Ford cars, which groups together the Blue Oval brand, Mercury, and luxury marques Lincoln, Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin.

While the new ranking marks a symbolic shift in the global auto industry's balance of power, analysts have long argued that rating auto makers by their sales volume is just that: symbolic.

SIZE ISN'T EVERYTHING

Indeed, at over $120 billion, Toyota's market capitalization -- a measure of how much investors believe a company is worth -- is more than four times that of Ford, and bigger than the combined stock values of Ford, GM and DaimlerChrysler.

By profitability, too, Toyota is way ahead of the pack.

Its bottom-line profit came to around $7 billion last business year -- by far the highest in the industry -- and is expected to jump another 27 percent for the year to March 31, according to a survey of 21 brokerages by Reuters Research.

Meanwhile, Ford earned a net $495 million in 2003, returning to the black for the first time in three years. Analysts expect a fivefold increase in earnings this year.

Ford has also been burdened by financial ills.

While its automotive business has $26 billion in cash, it also has billions in pension and health-care obligations, and its rating from Standard & Poor's stands one grade above "junk".

Executives have committed to rolling out new products fast, but models already in the pipeline and due out over the next couple of years will cost more than the vehicles they replace, forcing Ford to scour its business for cost cuts.

In contrast, Toyota has a cash pile of $20 billion, enabling it to spend freely on the development of next-generation environmental and other technology which could give it an edge when and if governments introduce stricter regulations. It can always raise more money: S&P last week raised the outlook on Toyota's top-notch 'AAA' rating to stable.

i'm going to assume that #1 is honda? or maybe GM maybe

GM is No.1 (for now...)

yeah, gm owns alot of the automotive market, its a shame really.

Yeah, whatever.

The American auto giants did demand that Japan in particular had to open up their market to American cars. Unfortunately they didn't want to build any RHD cars and demanded that Japan buy LHD cars which anyone could figure out wouldn't go over too well. D'oh!

And maybe they should have woken up a little earlier when it comes to building a quality product.

whatever.. i'm still happy with my family's 6 fords.

our 2...except for the taurus, its been acting up recently.

GM > Ford

A Taurus that's acting up? Say it ain't so. Wow, that's just incredible.

but hey the f-250 is perfect as always

u gots ur edumication.

Toyota is a great car, but they need some more sportier cars and smaller front lights

I think to celebrate their new ranking they need to bring the supra back.

that sounds like an excellent idea, just think with all those supras being sold again they might jump to number 1

And while we're at it let's get Mazda to bring back the FD.

how aobut a new supra, and a new RX-7 since a new FD is unrealistic

A new RX-8 based RX-7 would really kick ass. Imagine a two seat two door version of the RX-8 and, viola! New RX-7! That was easy. And damn a roadster version would look cool too.

i thought they were planning it, since Ford told them that they couldnt spend all that money on a new chassis and engine for one car.

unless we were to get a cosmo

Or a Renesis powered Miata

bring back the rotary truck!

Well IMO, in the past years domestic automobiles have been changing from the worst. It just seems the overall build quality seems to be dropping more and more as they try to cut costs as much as possible while (again this is just my opinion) the quality of most imports is getting better and better. Its no surprise to me that Toyota has overtaken Ford. In fact, its a surprise to me that they were behind Ford. Ford's primary market is their trucks, the Mustang, the Focus and somehow, the Taraus.

Also unfortunately the biggest market for cars right now is 4 door family cars and SUV's. No real performance cars have been released lately. There have been a few, but not many. Definately not enough to compete against the soccer mom crowd

I'd go on a little bit longer but I'm trying to eat chilli!
Chilli > Automotive discussion

Uhhh, Cyclone...Chili only has one "L" in it

Grammar Nazi!

UPDATE:

Toyota: Ford is No. 2
Toyota Motor Corp. did not pass Ford Motor Co. in global unit sales in 2003, Toyota President Fujio Cho said. Sales numbers released by Toyota in January appeared to show that it supplanted Ford as the world's No. 2 automaker. But Ford comes out on top when sales of the two companies are counted on the same basis.