GM to fight to hold top spot
Toyota near No. 1 automaker's 2006 sales of 9.1 million January 5, 2007 BY KATIE MERX FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER General Motors Corp. will not cede its title as the world's largest automaker without a fight, Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner said Thursday during a meeting with journalists. GM has been the world's No. 1 auto company since 1931 and on Thursday announced that it sold 9.1 million vehicles globally in 2006, down from almost 9.2 million the previous year. Toyota Motor Corp., which sold 8.8 million cars and trucks in 2006, has said it expects to sell 9.35 million vehicles this year, which analysts say would likely put the Japanese automaker ahead of GM -- a conclusion Wagoner does not accep "We like being No. 1 and our people take pride in it, so it's not something we would sit back and let somebody just pass us by," Wagoner said at GM's home base in the Renaissance Center in Detroit. "We're going to fight to keep the position; and if one day we lose it, we'll fight to get it back." GM hasn't shared its 2007 global sales forecast yet. But Wagoner said GM's foreign sales continued to grow. Outside the United States, GM sales increased 6.7% last year, Wagoner said. Over the past five years, GM's sales outside the United States have increased by 1.3 million vehicles, he said. Last year was the second year in a row that GM sold more vehicles outside the United States than it sold at home. In 2006, 55% of GM vehicle sales occurred outside the United States, up from 2005 when foreign sales first tipped the scales at 51%. Auto analyst Erich Merkle of IRN Inc. in Grand Rapids called GM's goal of maintaining the No. 1 post an admirable aim. "The thing that concerns me is that Toyota just has so much momentum right now," Merkle said. "I'm very pleased with a lot of the progress GM is making on its product front, but GM has still got to get its mojo back here in the North American auto industry. Where I think GM has a shot at running with Toyota is their wild card, which is China." GM remains the sales leader in China, with a 32% surge in sales boosting its 2006 total to greater than 800,000 vehicles. "Buick is a huge brand in China," Merkle said. "The Chinese tend to really embrace American culture and American things. They embrace American cars." Japan's Toyota could have some difficulty in China because of a contentious history between the countries, Merkle said. And while Toyota could certainly pass GM for the lead in global sales this year, after that the world's two largest automakers can be expected to run neck and neck into the middle of the next decade, according to Jeff Schuster, executive director of global forecasting and product analysis for J.D. Power and Associates. "We're going to have to fight for every sale and do it in a way that's consistent with building the value of the enterprise from a shareholder perspective," Wagoner said. "If, as a result of that, we get passed, it won't be a happy day for me. But I've lost basketball games in my life and you get ready and you learn and you go back and play the next day -- and that's what we'll do." Contact KATIE MERX at 313-222-8762 or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
