(Tokyo) The Japanese group Toyota remained the world’s number one car in volume sales in 2022 for the third consecutive year, with nearly 10.5 million vehicles sold (-0.1%), according to data. published on Monday.
“Despite the impact of production constraints caused by the spread of COVID-19, increased demand for semiconductors and other factors, global sales remained at the same level as the previous year due to strong demand centered on Asia” excluding Japan, Toyota said in a statement.
These clouds should also start to dissipate this year: Toyota recently said it was aiming for production of between 9.5 and 10.6 million units of its Toyota and Lexus brands in 2023, compared to 9 million last year (+ 5.2% over one year). The Toyota empire also includes two other brands, Daihatsu (mini-cars) and Hino (buses and trucks).
The German Volkswagen group remained number two in the world in 2022 with 8.3 million vehicles sold (-7%), according to figures published in mid-January.
The Korean group Hyundai-Kia, which is successfully coping with the shortage of electronic components, reaches third place worldwide with 6.85 million vehicles sold (+1.4% for Hyundai, +4.6% for Kia).
The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance comes back down to the bottom of the podium with 6.15 million vehicles. Renault (-23.9%) and Nissan, which published its sales figures on Monday (-20.7%), were notably slowed down by the logistical difficulties of the world market, but also by the end of their activities in Russia, with the war in Ukraine.
The Stellantis (PSA-Fiat-Chrysler) and General Motors groups, next on the list, have not yet published their global sales figures for the year 2022.
Toyota’s sales in all-electric, a segment in which it was slow to get serious, preferring other technologies such as hybrid engines, still pale in comparison. Its sales in this segment totaled only 24,466 units in 2022, very far from those of the American Tesla (1.3 million), the Chinese BYD (911,000) or the Volkswagen group (572,100).
Despite lagging behind in electrics, Toyota is expected to remain at the top of the global automotive hierarchy by volume in the coming years, according to Mio Kato, an analyst at LightStream Research in Tokyo posting on the Smartkarma platform.
“I think they (Toyota, editor’s note) will probably remain number one, because the companies that are catching up quickly are more Chinese companies than the incumbent Western manufacturers, and the all-electric players are still too small to have a chance. realistic to catch up with them over a 3 to 5 year outlook,” Kato told AFP.