No one wanted the bragging rights that went with being the world’s biggest maker of one of the most unwanted products of 2008: the motor vehicle.
It’s normally a title that’s been General Motors’ for the past 77 years, but in last year’s bloodbath, it was finally surpassed by Toyota, not that the ailing Japanese giant was crowing (Source).
Settling this arcane ‘world title’ was achieved by GM releasing its global car output figures for last year: Toyota’s 208 figures had come on Monday of this week.
GM said its global sales fell 10.8% in 2008 to 8.36 million units, Toyota’s dipped 4% to 8.97 million units. That’s still an awful lot of metal, plastic and rubber.
GM’s sales in Europe fell 6.5% while sales in North America plunged 21%. The company pointed out that it posted full-year sales gains in its Asia-Pacific region, as well as in its Latin America-Africa-Middle East region.
But its loss as the globe’s No. 1 automaker title came as no surprise as Toyota finished 2007 only 3,101 vehicles behind GM, as its sales rose and GM’s fell.
But neither would have expected the collapse in sales from around August onwards, and then the further plunge in October-December after Lehman Brothers failed and credit dried up.
Now GM (with Chrysler which is linking up with Fiat, and possibly Ford), are on the Government teat in the US, kept alive by transfusions of taxpayers’ money.
Americans are paying twice for their cars, as are the French, where another 6 billion euros was handed out this week.
Spaniards are paying twice (we in Australia are coughing up $A6 billion over 10 years or more), the Germans and Swedes are also on the twice over.
So it’s no wonder the title of ‘world’s biggest car maker’ is being shunned.
Toyota, and possibly Honda are facing full year losses for the year to March: the red ink puts them on a par (sort of) with GM, Ford and Chrysler.
BMW and Mercedes might sneak a smaller 2008 profit in Germany, but their losses in the US market have been horrible, and are still going on as the lease market collapses.
Only Volkswagen and its string of brands seems to have done relatively well in 2008. Sales rose, especially in its Audi division where they topped the million unit mark for the first time.
But there was another sting amid the GM commentary: it seems there’s no sign of any upturn in US car demand, despite the aid from Washington to GM and Chrysler and financial assistance to the car financial groups, GMAC, Ford Credit and at Chrysler to try and boost buyer demand.
GM sales analyst Mike DiGiovanni was reported by news media as saying in a conference call that there were no signs that sales will improve anytime soon.
DiGiovanni said that the seasonally-adjusted annual US sales rate will fall below 10 million vehicles this month, the first time below that benchmark since 1982.
US sales came in just over the 10 million sales pace in each month of the December quarter.
DiGiovanni attributed the fall to a sharp drop in fleet sales to businesses, such as rental car companies, rather than further weakness in consumer sales. Big car renters like Hertz, have slashed fleet numbers and cut staff jobs in the thousands.
GM had forecast car sales at an annual rate of 10.5 million in its recovery plan, so any prolonged slump under this level, will see speculation grow about its financial position.
GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda and Nissan have all made big cuts to first quarter production targets to try and cut stocks of unsold vehicles.
GM said thee cuts were leading to the drop in fleet sales, but retail sales should be at or slightly above the level in the fourth quarter.
GM expects to receive $US5.4 billion from the US Treasury this week, after paperwork delayed payment at the end of last week.
