Toyota's Sales: Not As Good As They Look

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/02/toyota-sales-march-business-autos-flint.html

Jerry Flint, 04.02.10, 05:26 PM EDT

Toyota sold a lot of vehicles in March, but its declining first-quarter market share gives a better idea of the company's pain.

Toyota's sales problems are beginning to become clear, and they are serious despite its big March number.

The best measure is market share. In the first quarter of this year Toyota ( TM - news - people ) won only 15.1% of the auto market. That compares with 17% for all of last year. The first quarter share was down 1.9 points, which amounts to an 11% drop.

If you extended that for a full year and translate it into sales numbers, it could mean the Japanese company would sell 200,000 fewer vehicles this year in the U.S. than it might have sold without the crisis.

Toyota sales in March were big, 41% ahead of the year-ago month. But they are the catch-up for the January/February slowdown. The company had a large incentive program--0% financing, subsidized leases, free maintenance, plus a big advertising campaign. Many of these incentives are to end early in April. Toyota will have new incentives for April, that's for certain, but they may not be as strong as those in March.

We'll know even more when we count the April sales and the months to come. Even if there is more catch-up in April, Toyota might be chewing up some business with incentives that might have come later in the year.

What else do the first-quarter sales show?

General Motors still is losing market share. The first quarter 18.7% market share compared with 19.9% all last year. But there are signs that GM is moving toward holding its own. The surviving nameplates, Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC, have good sales gains against last year. The losses come from the killing of Pontiac and Saturn.

FULL 2 page story at link.