it is Well known that with regard to rankings sales of car manufacturers worldwide there is nothing decided until the last day of the year. There are many problems that can bring down a brand, moving away from the forecast and the position dreamed of. We have already seen as in 2015 the scandal Dieselgate affected Volkswagen, the group that strangely enough, in the first quarter of 2016 is positioned as the global market leader, .
Toyota has lost its position of leadership in the first quarter for the first time in four years and kept the trend, your position at the end of the year could be jeopardised. earthquakes in Japan have made that Toyota has had to paralyze various factories, dropping their sales by 2.3% to 2.46 million cars in the period January-march. Volkswagen, in contrast, despite the scandal Dieselgate has grown 0.8% up to 2.5 million units. General Motors maintains its third position with a decline of 2.5% and 2.36 million cars sold.
In February, Toyota already had the first problems that have made you lose the leadership at the time of selling cars. In their subsidiary company Aichi Steel Corp. there was a explosion that interrupted production components for engines, gearboxes and parts of the chassis, so that the production of some models had to be stopped, lowering only at that month its sales by 17%. The recent earthquakes that occurred in Japan have had a direct impact on the production, lower than that of 2011, but important, losing 80,000 units in the first quarter.
it is Still early and the situations can be reversed, but for Toyota will be important to show your capacity of recovery and see if it is possible to recover the pace of production and sales lost by the events.
Source – Automotive News Europe