Toyota sold 8.4 million vehicles in 2010 to hold top spot

Toyota sold 8.42 million vehicles globally in 2010, remaining the world's top automaker for the third year straight despite recall woes in the key North American market.

General Motors also released a new tally on Monday for its global 2010 sales, at 8.39 million vehicles, slightly fewer than Toyota's number.

Toyota's global sales, including truckmaker Hino Motors Ltd. and Daihatsu Motor Co., which makes small cars, rose 8 % from 2009, driven by solid sales growth in China and other Asian nations, the Japanese manufacturer said.

Toyota Motor Corp. dethroned General Motors as the world's No. 1 automaker in worldwide vehicle sales in 2008 - a position GM held for nearly eight decades. Since then, General Motors, now called General Motors Co., underwent restructuring.

George Hansen, a GM spokesman in Tokyo, played down the importance of Toyota's bigger sales numbers.

'We don't focus on who is No. 1,' he said of the so-called 'new GM.'

Toyota also said it was not concerned with beating GM. 'Our objective is to become No. 1 with the customers,' said Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco.

He said company was doing its utmost to beef up quality. 'We want to be their favorite car manufacturer.'

Toyota, which had thrived on the back of its reputation for quality manufacturing, has suffered a serious image problem since announcing massive recalls in 2009.

The recalls spanned more than 10 million vehicles around the world for faulty floor mats, sticky gas pedals, software glitches and other defects, but mostly in North America.

Toyota was the only major automaker to see its North American vehicle sales drop last year compared to the previous year. Other automakers staged a recovery from the global financial crisis. Toyota's North American sales last year totaled 1.94 million vehicles, down 2 % from 2009.

Toyota fared better in its home Japanese market, where tax breaks and government incentives for green vehicles kept its Prius gas-electric hybrid sales booming.

The Prius ranked as Japan's top-selling car in 2010 with annual sales of 315,669 cars, hitting an all-time high for any nameplate and a 51 % increase from the previous year. Toyota's sales in Japan jumped 10 % last year from the previous year to 2.20 million vehicles, despite a sluggish economy. Toyota's overall overseas sales also held up, expanding 7 % to 6.21 million vehicles. Toyota vehicle sales jumped 19 % in China and 24 % in other Asian nations, according to Toyota. Before the financial crisis and the recall fiasco, Toyota appeared unstoppable and on track to sell perhaps as many as 10 million vehicles around the world a year.

Toyota has not emphasized a growth strategy as much since the recall mess. It no longer has the annual president's news conference, where global sales targets were announced with fanfare. During the recall crisis, Toyota was criticized as being slow in responding, but its image has largely held up outside the U.S. In December, Toyota agreed to pay $32.4 million in fines to the U.S. government to settle the investigation into its handling of two recalls. The latest settlement was on top of the $16.4 million fine Toyota paid earlier.