During the first three quarters of CY2021, Toyota managed to outsell General Motors in the US market, taking the first spot on the sales chart
Between January and September 2021, Toyota managed to outsell General Motors in the US market. The Japanese car giant sold 1.86 million vehicles between that time period, compared to 1.78 million vehicles sold by GM. The latter has been the largest carmaker in the US in terms of sales since 1931, when it grabbed that crown from Ford.
However, the global semiconductor shortage has been a major challenge for almost every manufacturer around the world, and General Motors has been hit rather hard by the crisis. That said, the manufacturer has stated that it will commence regular production in most of its plants in North American starting next week.
Vehicles use semiconductor chips for various onboard systems, like infotainment systems, engine control units, and nowadays for plenty of safety features as well. However, with the demand for electronic devices skyrocketing during lockdown, along with production bottlenecks, carmakers have been struggling to secure enough chips to keep vehicle production running smoothly.
The US car major also revealed that its sales in the US during the third quarter of this year fell by around 33 per cent, to 446,997 units, which is the manufacturer’s worst quarterly sales performance in over a decade. As for Toyota, its sales in the third quarter of 2021 rose by 1.5 per cent to 566,055 units, and for the first nine months of this year, sales were up by 27.9 per cent on a Year-on-Year basis.
GM spokesman Jim Cain had this to say on the matter, “We certainly wish we had a few more semiconductors and I bet Toyota wishes they had a few more pickups and SUVs. Nobody should be making long-term judgments about the market.”
Toyota, the world’s largest carmaker by volume, has stated that overtaking GM was an anomaly. The Japanese carmaker did not have any plans to seize the number one spot in the US market, and it was the global semiconductor chip crisis that pushed it to prime position.