Toyota vehicle sale plunges 21.8 percent

Toyota City, Dec 24: Thanks to the global recession, Japan's No 1 automaker, Toyota, has its biggest drop of sale in eight years. The global vehicle sales plunged 21.8 percent in Nov. The news comes just days after the company predicted that this fiscal year it would report its first operating loss in 70 years.

Toyota global vehicle sales sold 618,000 automobiles in November which is 21.8 percent down from 2007 November. Toyota Motor Corporation is running neck-and-neck against industry leader General Motors Corporation.

That's the biggest year-on-year slide since Toyota began tracking comparable data in Jan 2000. Such declines never reached 20 percent in the past, the company said. For the January-November period, Toyota sold 8.356 million vehicles around the world. Detroit-based GM has not released such figures.

Japanese automakers, which boast a reputation for fuel-efficient models, had avoided some of the serious problems of their American rivals. But shrinking demand in the US after the financial crisis hit earlier this year has battered their sales and profit.

Toyota said on Monday, Dec 22 that it expects to report an operating loss of USD 1.66 billion for the fiscal year ending March 2009, its first such annual loss since 1938, the year after the company was founded.

OneIndia News (With inputs from Agencies)