Toyota Motor Corp. (TM) has retained its title as the world’s top-selling automaker, having sold 10.5 million vehicles in 2022.
This is the third consecutive year that the Japanese automaker has sold the most vehicles globally, beating out rivals such as the Volkswagen Group (VOW3) in Europe and General Motors (GM) in the U.S.
Global sales for Toyota, which include truck unit Hino Motors and small-car maker Daihatsu, were 0.1% lower in 2022 as record overseas sales of 8.6 million vehicles largely offset a 9.6% decline in the domestic Japanese market.
Second-ranked Volkswagen earlier in January reported its lowest sales in over a decade at 8.3 million vehicles sold for all of 2022. Ongoing COVID-19 lockdowns in China and the war in Ukraine hurt Volkswagen’s supply chains last year, the company said.
In contrast, Toyota said that strong demand in Asia and an increase in production capacity helped to boost its global production by 5% in 2022.
However, Toyota recently revised down its production forecast for the current year to 9.2 million vehicles from 9.7 million previously.
On January 26, Toyota announced that its long-time president and chief executive officer (CEO) Akio Toyoda is resigning from the automaker effective April 1 of this year.
Toyoda will be replaced as CEO by current chief branding officer Koji Sato.
Toyota’s stock is down 25% over the past year at $147.16 U.S. per share.
