GM barely retains title of largest automaker

Toyota is close to taking the title of world's largest automaker.
DETROIT (AP) -- General Motors Corp.'s 2006 worldwide sales dropped slightly last year to 9.09 million cars and trucks, but it apparently was enough to keep the title of world's largest automaker for another year.
The company's closest rival, Toyota Motor Corp., estimates that it sold 8.8 million vehicles last year, barely short of GM's sales total for the year. Toyota usually releases its final totals near the end of January.
GM said Wednesday that worldwide sales last year fell 0.9 percent from 9.17 million in 2005, due mainly to lower sales in the United States.
The two companies are preparing for a showdown in 2007, with GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner vowing to fight to keep the No. 1 spot.
Toyota has said it expects to produce 9.42 million vehicles this year. GM hasn't disclosed 2007 worldwide production estimates, but Wagoner has said the company has capacity to produce more than Toyota says it will produce this year.
"Being the largest car company in the world can't be a focus, it has to be a byproduct of giving people in each market the vehicles they really want. GM enjoys that position today," John Middlebrook, GM's vice president for global sales, said in a news release.
Reason for decline
GM, which is struggling with lagging sales and a corporate restructuring, attributed the decline in 2006 sales in part to planned cuts of 75,000 vehicles in daily rental fleet sales. GM earlier reported U.S. sales of 4.12 million in 2006, down about 9 percent from the previous year.
GM sold more cars and trucks overseas than it did at home last year. The company said a preliminary count of its non-U.S. sales last year totaled 4.97 million vehicles, or 55 percent of the worldwide total. That is up about 7 percent from 2005.
Sales grew 18 percent in GM's Asia-Pacific market and 17 percent in its Latin America, Africa and Middle East region.
"GM had some notable sales successes as we continued to expand in key growth markets around the world in 2006," particularly in the Asia-Pacific region and the region that includes Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, Middlebrook said.
GM said this month that its total sales in China last year rose 32 percent over 2005 to 876,747 vehicles. China's biggest-selling automaker last year was Shanghai General Motors Corp., a GM joint venture, with 365,400 vehicles sold, according to a Chinese industry group.
GM will fight for every sale, Wagoner said, but will stay within its strategy of relying on quality products to make money and less on selling cars and trucks with incentives.
If Toyota does pass GM, Wagoner said he would not be pleased, but the company would fight to get the crown back in 2008.