Toyota has been holding the number one position in the car sales globally for some time now, but things have changed in 2011. As per the car sales data from January 2011 to June 2011, Toyota is now number two with General Motors taking the number one position.
Besides aggressive launches and improvements in GM products and sales strategy, nature also played a major role for this change to happen. The unfortunate tsunami and earthquake which hit Japan in the beginning of the year did a lot of harm to Toyota’s global supply chain which hit the sales of Toyota negatively by 23% which is a sharp fall. Toyota globally sold 3.7 million vehicles in the first half of calendar year 2011.
On the other hand, General Motors grew its sales by about 8.9 % with a total sales figure of 4.5 million vehicles sold from 1 Jan 2011 to 30 June 2011 which is a strong number. This shift may not last too long with the situations in Japan back to normal, the Toyota is set to make a rebound and reclaim its position in coming quarters.
