Toyota's global sales mark worst drop in 8 years

[December 24, 2008]  TOKYO (AP) -- In more bad news for Japan's auto industry, Toyota said Wednesday its global vehicle sales plunged 21.8 percent in November, the biggest drop in eight years.

Rival Nissan said its worldwide sales sank 19.8 percent and global production nose-dived a record 33.7 percent on depressed sales in the United States.

The dismal data comes two days after Toyota, Japan's biggest automaker, predicted that this fiscal year it would report its first operating loss in 70 years.

Toyota Motor Corp., running neck-and-neck against industry leader General Motors Corp. in global vehicle sales, sold 618,000 automobiles in November, down 21.8 percent from last November.

That's the biggest year-on-year slide since Toyota began tracking comparable data in January 2000. Such declines never reached 20 percent in the past, the company said.

Nissan Motor Co., Japan's third-biggest car manufacturer, said its global production plummeted 33.7 percent to 222,212, the largest drop since it started compiling such data in 1985. Worldwide sales dropped nearly 20 percent to 237,653 in the month.

"Weak demand in the United States and Europe pressured our production. A slump in domestic output also contributed" to the record fall, said Nissan spokeswoman Yuko Matsuda.

Japan's No. 2 carmaker, Honda Motor Co., also said Wednesday its global production in November tumbled 9.9 percent, the biggest fall in five years, to 326,176 vehicles. Honda does not provide global vehicle sales.

For the January-November period, Toyota sold 8.356 million vehicles around the world. Detroit-based GM has not released such figures.

Japanese automakers, which boast a reputation for fuel-efficient models, had avoided some of the serious problems of their American rivals. But shrinking demand in the U.S. after the financial crisis hit earlier this year has battered their sales and profit.

Toyota said Monday that it expects to report an operating loss of 150 billion yen ($1.66 billion) for the fiscal year ending March 2009, its first such annual loss since 1938, the year after the company was founded.

It also lowered its net profit forecast -- which gives a fuller picture by including income taxes and various other expenses -- to just 50 billion yen ($555 million) for the year through March 2009 -- a tiny fraction of the 1.7 trillion yen it earned last year.

For nearly a decade, Toyota was steadily on track toward reaching the 10 million vehicles mark in global sales, and readying to dethrone GM from the top position it held for 77 years.

But with the global slump, Toyota has had to lower its sales targets as well. On Monday, it reduced its global vehicles sales target for 2008 again to 8.96 million. Earlier in the year it had expected to sell 9.85 million vehicles globally.

[Associated Press; By YURI KAGEYAMA]

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