Inflicted by Earthquake Toyota's global sales or slipped to third

According to Reuters, since the world’s number one car maker Japan’s Toyota’s auto production capacity was hit by the 3.11 earthquake in Japan, the company’s annual production capacity will be lower than that of US General Motors and German Volkswagen, so Toyota is likely to lose the number one in the world in 2011. The title of car companies may slip into the third place in the sales ranking for the whole year.

It is understood that Toyota’s production in April and May will still face severe challenges after Toyota’s domestic auto production in Japan fell by two thirds in March. Toyota’s Japanese plant will stop production from April 28 to May 9, and Toyota Japan The factory will only maintain 50% of its vehicle output before June 3. In addition, all of Toyota’s factories need to wait until November or December to return to normal production levels.

In March 2011, Toyota's factory production in Japan fell by 62.7%, which dropped to 129,500. At the same time, output of Japan's Nissan and Honda Motor Co. also fell by 52.4% and 62.9%, respectively.

Koji Endo, president of the auto industry research firm Advanced Research Japan, predicts that Toyota Motor Corporation will have sales of around 6.5 million vehicles worldwide in 2011. Other auto industry analysts also hold similar views that Toyota's global car sales are between 6.3 million and 7 million.

Endo Koji said: "GM's global production in 2011 is likely to exceed 8 million again, and Volkswagen's global production may exceed 7 million, so Toyota will be the third."

In 2010, Toyota and General Motors had global sales of 8.42 million and 8.39 million vehicles, and Volkswagen was 7.14 million.