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Toyota zooms ahead
(China Daily/Agencies)
Updated: 2010-01-07 08:02
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Toyota Motor Corp said yesterday it sold 21 percent more cars in China in 2009 compared with a year earlier, lagging rival General Motors' 67 percent gain.
Toyota, which competes with Honda Motor and others, sold 709,000 cars in China in 2009, up from 585,000 units a year earlier, it said in a statement.
That compared with 1.83 million vehicles GM sold in China last year, which also includes 1.06 million mini vans, pick-up trucks made at SAIC-GM-Wuling, its three-way venture with SAIC Motor Corp and Liuzhou Wuling Automobile.
Volkswagen AG has yet to release its annual sales in China, but Winfried Vahland, president and CEOof its China operations said in November he expected the automaker to sell about 1.4 million vehicles in the mainland and Hong Kong last year, up more than 35 percent from 2008.
Analysts attributed Toyota's slower growth to its lack of small cars whose sales soared last year thanks to government tax incentives.
"GM and Volkswagen are a major beneficiary of the policy incentives favoring small cars, while Toyota's portfolio in China is not as broad," said Zhang Xin, an analyst with Guotai Junan Securities.
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The company originally said in a statement that sales were up 121 percent in 2009, but a company official later clarified the rise was actually 21 percent.
Masahiro Kato, president of Toyota's China operations, said in November that the Japanese automaker was expected to sell 800,000 cars in China in 2010.
Earlier last year, Toyota rolled out a revamped version of its Vios and Yaris compact cars - both eligible for the government's tax incentives.
It also launched RAV4, a sport-utility vehicle produced by its two ventures the next month.
