Toyota and Volkswagen have delivered their 10 month global production and sales numbers, which helps us to update where they stand in this year’s race for World’s Largest Automaker. GM has chosen to keep stockholders and public in the dark, forcing us to perform rough estimates based on quarterly numbers. As you can see, not much has changed since a month ago, and we don’t expect a change in the ranking when the year ends.
World’s Largest Automakers | ||||
10 Month 2014 | ||||
Jan-Oct 2014 | Jan-Oct 2013 | YoY | 2014 proj. | |
Toyota | 8,638,826 | 8,448,426 | 2.3% | 10,367,000 |
Volkswagen | 8,240,000 | 7,850,000 | 5.0% | 10,113,000 |
GM | 8,190,826 | 8,056,404 | 1.7% | 9,829,000 |
Source: Company data. GM, VW: Deliveries. Toyota: Production. Blue: Estimate | ||||
Volkswagen data ex MAN and Scania. Included in estimate |
Our year-end estimate of Volkswagen’s global production includes an estimated 225,000 heavy trucks and buses produced by MAN and Scania. Their numbers are not contained in VW’s monthly tally, but they will be when the year ends. Even with the heavy iron considered, we expect Toyota to be ahead of runner-up Volkswagen by a comfortable margin.
Volkswagen’s global growth rate is about double the market. Toyota maintains an equilibrium. Volkswagen follows an aggressive growth strategy. Toyota, worried about the economy in future years, decided to keep its powder dry and major CAPEX off the table. While Volkswagen’s chances of taking the #1 spot away from Toyota are slim to none this year, the Wolfsburg carmaker is well poised to overtake Toyota in 2015 as long as the current trajectories remain intact.