By Tom Krisher, AP Auto Writer
DETROIT (AP) -- General Motors Corp. is in danger of losing its 76-year title as the world's sales leader, as totals for 2007 released on Wednesday showed the automaker in a virtual tie with Toyota Motor Corp.
GM said it sold 9,369,524 vehicles worldwide last year, up 3 percent from 2006. Earlier this month, Toyota reported global sales of 9.37 million vehicles, but the Japanese automaker did not release a number down to the last vehicle.
"The race is too close to call," Mike DiGiovanni, GM's executive director of global market and industry analysis said during a conference call Wednesday with reporters and industry analysts. "I don't think anybody knows at this point."
Detroit-based GM has held the title of world's largest automaker since 1931, but Toyota's strong U.S. growth and GM's U.S. sales decline helped Toyota move closer to the top spot in recent years.
John Middlebrook, GM vice president for global sales, service and marketing operations, said sales in China, Russia and Brazil helped drive the gain.
"This is the kind of emerging market growth that fuels our global performance," Middlebrook said in a statement. "Customers are responding to our fuel-efficient and dynamically-designed product lineup around the world."
GM said 2007 sales were the second best global total in the company's 100-year history and marked the third consecutive time, and fourth time ever, that GM sold more than 9 million vehicles a year.
Toyota's share of the U.S. market has more than doubled since 1990, when it controlled only 7.5 percent of the market with just over 1 million in sales, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank. Its sales have grown briskly in recent years, sometimes by double digits, as people bought its smaller, fuel efficient cars with a reputation for reliability. By 2007, Toyota controlled 16.3 percent of the U.S. market, selling 2.6 million vehicles.
GM, while still the U.S. sales leader, has seen its U.S. market share drop dramatically since 1990, when it controlled about 35 percent by selling nearly 5 million vehicles. Last year GM's share was roughly 23.8 percent, with sales of 3.8 million vehicles.
GM Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner has pledged to defend his company's title, but said it would not abandon its U.S. strategy of reducing incentives and low-profit sales to rental car companies in order to win.
"Great cars, smart marketing, growth in the emerging markets. And hopefully that will keep us on top. If not, we'll come back to work the next day and work even harder," Wagoner said earlier this month.
The title in coming years likely will be decided by sales in burgeoning markets such as China, Russia, South America and other regions with a growing middle class.
Mature markets in North America and Europe, meanwhile, are likely to post slower growth, analysts say, and Japan's auto market is shrinking.
Toyota is setting up overseas plants to achieve growth in new markets -- aiming to sell 9.85 million vehicles worldwide this year, up 5 percent from last year, under an ambitious plan it announced last month. Toyota executives also said they projected better vehicle sales in the U.S. this year.
Shoichiro Toyoda, a member of the founding family and former Toyota president, said gaining the top spot in the auto industry could be transient.
"We are not No. 1," he said when asked recently by The Associated Press how he felt about becoming the world's biggest automaker.
"It's just one moment," he said at a reception for auto manufacturers this month. "We need to just keep working harder."
Other Toyota executives have also consistently brushed off questions about becoming No. 1.
Some company officials acknowledge they are even nervous about wresting the honors because of fears about a U.S. political backlash reminiscent of the "Japan-bashing" in the 1980s and 90s, when the nation was accused of taking jobs from American workers.
Earlier this month, Toyota deposed Ford Motor Co. as the No. 2 auto-seller in the U.S. in 2007.
GM shares rose 4 cents, or 0.17 percent, to $23.69 in morning trading Wednesday, while Toyota's U.S. shares fell $1.97, or 2.03 percent, to $94.94.
General Motors Corp.: http://www.gm.com
Toyota Motor Corp. http://www.toyota.com
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