Toyota Motor will raise its projected global production to almost 10m vehicles next year, and could soon outpace General Motors to become the world’s largest automaker, a Japanese business newspaper reported on Sunday.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
According to Reuters, citing an unsourced report in the Nikkei, Toyota plans to raise its output projection for 2008 to 9.95m vehicles worldwide from 9.90m.
A Toyota Europe spokesman declined to comment on the report but said the automaker would release 2007 results and a 2008 forecast soon.
The Associated Press, citing the Nikkei, said the production increase reflects booming sales in China, the Middle East and other emerging economies.
The news agency noted that Toyota reported in November its worldwide production totalled 7.05m vehicles in the first nine months of this year, just short of 7.06m vehicles sold by GM in the same period.
The Nikkei reportedly said Toyota’s global output could surpass GM’s as early as the end of this year.
Toyota is expecting a 4% increase in its global output to 9.42m units this year, compared to GM’s projected 9.26m announced this month – and if that happens, Toyota would become the world’s largest automaker for the first time, the Nikkei said, according to the Associated Press.
