Toyota Motor Corp. became the world's top auto seller in the first three months of the year, passing rival General Motors Corp. for the first time, the Japanese automaker said Tuesday.
Toyota sold 2.35 million vehicles worldwide in the January-March quarter, the company said, surpassing the 2.26 million vehicles that GM said it sold during the same period. The results mark the first time Toyota has beat GM in global sales on a quarterly basis.
Toyota's reputation for quality and fuel efficiency has lifted sales of the popular Camry, Corolla and Prius gas-and-electric hybrid while GM has cut production as high fuel prices turned people away from its light trucks and sports utility vehicles.
While the figures represent only quarterly sales results, they foreshadow a tough challenge for GM as it fights to hold onto it title as world's top automaker – a claim usually staked on annual production figures.
Toyota has been gaining steadily on GM in recent years, and analysts have been saying it is only a matter of time before it eclipses its Detroit-based rival, which has seen its market share shrink in the United States even as it leads sales in China.
“Everybody on the road expects Toyota to overtake GM in 2007,” said Koji Endo, an analyst with Credit Suisse in Tokyo. “I won't say the trend is impossible to reverse, but it's extremely difficult.”
