Toyota Surpasses Ford As Worldwide Auto Maker - Congratulations

TOKYO January 22, 2004; Kazuhiro Shimamura writing for Dow Jones reported that Toyota Motor Corp. said Friday the most recent sales data show that it climbed into second place in global auto sales in 2003, climbing past Ford Motor Co. for the first time.

Toyota said its vehicle sales by registration in 2003 are estimated at 6.78 million vehicles, up 9.9%, while Ford said Thursday its sales for the year slipped 3.6% to 6.72 million vehicles.

Those numbers demonstrate the increasing competitiveness of Toyota and other Japanese automakers against the Big Three automakers in the U.S. market.

Even global sales leader General Motors Corp. , whose sales exceeded eight million vehicles in 2003, lost its some of its share of the U.S. market, declining to 28.0% from 28.3%.

"We're not aiming for any specific sales ranking," a Toyota spokesman said, adding the U.S. Big Three are still larger than Toyota if their group sales include those of affiliates.

Sales figures of Toyota and Ford include vehicles sold by the parent company and subsidiaries. Sales by group companies in which the parent holds less than 50% are not counted, the spokesman said.

Sales by Japan's Mazda Motor Corp. , 33.4%-owned by Ford, are not included in Ford's sales results.

"If you look at the Ford group in a broader sense, including Mazda's numbers can easily push up its sales" by one million units, the Toyota official said.

Toyota said it is often difficult to make direct comparisons of sales figures of Japanese and U.S. manufacturers.

Japanese companies define sales as the number of vehicles sold by dealers and registered by the customers, while the U.S. sales data are on a wholesale basis.

The difference between the wholesale and registration numbers depends on various factors at each company, Toyota said.

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