Toyota Humble Says It Is Unlikely to Beat Chrysler Again Soon - Oh Yeah

DETROIT, Sept 4, 2003; Michael Ellis writing for Reuters reported that Toyota Motor Corp. (Tokyo may not soon repeat its August U.S. sales results, when it passed Chrysler for the first time, a top U.S. official with the Japanese automaker said on Thursday.

Toyota reported its best-ever sales of 200,482 cars and trucks in August, topping the 200,000 mark and beating the Chrysler arm of DaimlerChrysler AG for the first time. Chrysler, the No. 3 U.S. automaker, posted a 6 percent drop in August sales to 190,388 vehicles.

"It's right now going to be a high water mark for the time being because our inventories are depleted," Jim Press, Toyota's executive vice president and chief operating officer of U.S. sales told Reuters in an interview.

Toyota's blowout sales in August left it with 25 days of supply of new vehicles on dealers' lots, far below the industry average of around 70 days.

However, analysts said that it is only a matter of time before Toyota leaves Chrysler behind for good, becoming the first foreign automaker to stake a claim as a member of the Big Three.

"At this rate, they could overtake them in the next couple of years," said Rebecca Lindland, a senior market analyst with Global Insight.

While Toyota is aggressively expanding in North America, with the addition of new vehicle assembly plants and the launch this summer of the Scion brand, which Toyota hopes will attract many of the estimated 65 million young Americans who will get a drivers license over the next 10 years.

The Toyota brand became the top seller of cars this year, passing the Ford and Chevrolet brands. But pickup trucks will help grow Toyota's U.S. sales above 2 million by 2005, Press said, up from 1.76 million last year.

Toyota claims 11 percent of the U.S. market of passenger cars, but only a 4 percent share of the full-size pickup truck market, which is dominated by the U.S. automakers.

Toyota breaks ground next month on its full-size pickup truck in San Antonio, Texas, in the heart of truck country. Toyota is also building a plant in Baja, Mexico, to build compact pickup trucks.

Chrysler has also set a lofty target of growing its worldwide sales by 1 million vehicles by the end of the decade. But Chrysler and its U.S. competitors have been losing market share in the United States.

In May, Chrysler canceled plans to build a new assembly plant in Ontario, Canada, where it had considered manufacturing a small pickup truck.

Strong growth in the U.S. market is key to Toyota's plans to grow its worldwide market share to 15 percent by 2010 from 10 percent currently, said Frank Khoshnoud, senior director of the Global Automotive Practice with Cap Gemini.

"When they go public with a statement, you can take it to the bank," he said.