Toyota Motor Corp kept its position at the top in global vehicle sales for the first quarter of this year, outpacing rivals General Motors Co (GM) and Volkswagen AG.
Toyota yesterday said that it sold a record 2.583 million vehicles in the January-to-March period, putting the Japanese automaker ahead of Detroit-based GM at 2.42 million and Volkswagen of Germany at 2.4 million.
Toyota’s first-quarter sales rose by more than 6 percent from the same period last year. GM’s sales grew 2 percent, while Volkswagen’s added nearly 6 percent.
Toyota finished first last year with a record 9.98 million vehicles in sales, remaining the top-selling automaker for a second year in a row. GM finished second and VW third.
Toyota is targeting sales of more than 10 million vehicles this year. Toyota officials say being No. 1 is not that important, and they want to be No. 1 in customer satisfaction.
By region, Toyota’s sales for the first quarter grew in Japan as consumers rushed to buy ahead of a rise in the sales tax, which kicked in on April 1. Its sales also grew in the rest of Asia, the Middle East, South America and Africa, according to Toyota.
GM was the No. 1 selling automaker in 2011, when Toyota’s production was hurt by the quake and tsunami in northeastern Japan. The company’s image has taken a hit after a February recall of 2.6 million vehicles for defective ignition switches, a defect the company tied to 13 deaths.
GM and the US government are investigating why it took the firm more than a decade to recall the cars after engineers first learned of the switch problems.
On Monday, GM filed a motion in a US court to enforce a bar on lawsuits stemming from ignition defects in cars sold before its 2009 bankruptcy as it fights proposed class action litigation that seeks to set aside the restriction.
Plaintiffs suing the company also filed a proposed class action lawsuit in Manhattan’s bankruptcy court on Monday, seeking an order declaring that GM cannot use the bankruptcy protection to absolve itself from liabilities.
Late on Tuesday, US bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber in New York issued an order setting a procedural conference for Friday next week to determine how the case should move forward.
Also on Tuesday, GM said it was restructuring its engineering operations to improve the quality and safety of its vehicles.
GM vice president of global engineering John Calabrese is retiring in the automaker’s highest profile executive change since the recent recall of vehicles.
Global product development chief Mark Reuss, to whom Calabrese reports, said the engineering chief’s exit was not related to the recall of 2.6 million vehicles this year. Calabrese, 55, will stay on through August to help with the transition.
Company documents provided to congressional investigators show Calabrese was apprised at least once of major developments of an internal ignition switch probe that led to the recall this year, but his role in the process is not clear. GM declined to comment.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San