General Motors has been the largest automaker in the world for the past 77 years. The General has recorded more sales than any other car maker since 1931! That’s a feat no other car maker can touch. Still, the day has come when the once mighty GM has to be succeeded.
It seems that as of this week, Toyota is now the world’s largest automaker. Toyota took GM’s title by virtue of it being there to take advantage of GM’s embarassing fall. Affected by slumping sales itself, Toyota has had to deal with a 4% drop in worldwide sales. GM posted sales numbers of 8.356 million for 2008, which places it second behind Toyota’s 8.972 million units. That equates to a loss of sales of just more than 10% for GM compared to last year.
In the scale that GM operates in, that’s huge. In the U.S. alone, General Motors saw its sales slump a staggering 21% compared to the same time last year. The rise of Toyota over GM was inevitable. That ship wasn’t sinking nearly as fast. Still, I guess in the world of business, that’s just how it goes. What’s that old saying? "The king is dead! Long live the king!"
Source: AutoWeek
