Toyota is world’s biggest automaker for third year

Toyota warded off Volkswagen to remain the world’s top-selling automaker for a third consecutive year, driven by record U.S. deliveries of its SUVs.

Worldwide sales for Toyota climbed 3 per cent to 10.23 million vehicles last year, according to a company statement. Volkswagen last week report- ed a 4.2 per cent gain to 10.14 million vehicles, including its two heavy-truck units. General Motors followed with 9.92 million sales, up 2.1 per cent.

Surging demand for sport-utility vehicles including the compact RAV4 and mid-size Highlander paced Toyota’s U.S. market share gain last year, spurring plans to boost local production and exports from Japan in 2015. As Volkswagen and GM add factories to bolster their already-dominant position in China, President Akio Toyoda’s strategy to forgo building new car plants until at least next year could result in the first shakeup in auto-sales leadership since 2011.

“Their focus is not No. 1,” Peggy Furusaka, a Tokyo-based auto-credit analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, said by phone. “Toyota is more concerned about keeping profitability than chasing numbers. So for coming years, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Toyota selling fewer cars than VW.”

Toyota forecasts a 1 per cent decline in annual sales to 10.15 million vehicles in 2015, the Toyota City, Japanbased carmaker said in a statement today. Volkswagen and GM haven’t announced projections for this year.

Toyota is predicting a decline in sales this year because of an expected slump in demand in Japan, where the consumption tax increase last year had brought forward many purchases, spokeswoman Kayo Doi said.

Last year, Toyota’s sales gained in the U.S., Europe, China and Brazil while deliveries in Thailand and Indonesia slumped, according to the company.

Toyoda, 58 and the founder’s grandson, has reined in the building of new plants following sudden unintended acceleration recalls in 2009 and 2010 and Japan’s tsunami the next year. The factory freeze was a response to those crises early in Toyoda’s tenure. Overexpansion before he became president had contributed to the carmaker’s first annual loss in almost six decades.

Sales in the U.S. for Toyota climbed 6.2 per cent to 2.37 million units last year in the U.S., outpacing growth for GM, the largest U.S. carmaker, according to researcher Autodata Corp. Record SUV deliveries helped Toyota quadruple Volkswagen’s sales, which dropped 2.9 per cent, Autodata said.

The VW brand sells just two SUVs in the U.S. — the compact Tiguan and upscale Touareg — while Toyota fields five. The Japanese automaker is now considering smaller SUVs for further growth, Jim Lentz, chief executive officer of Toyota’s North American operations, said in an interview.

In China, Toyota sells less than onethird as many vehicles as Volkswagen or GM, which have pledged to continue building local factories to supply a market forecast to expand to another record of more than 25 million vehicles this year.

GM’s China sales rose 12 per cent last year to 3.54 million vehicles, while mainland China and Hong Kong accounted for a record 3.67 million deliveries at Volkswagen last year, up 12 per cent and extending the country’s lead as the German manufacturer’s largest single market.