Toyota sets best monthly sales record in April

Toyota Motor Corporation set the best monthly sales record in April. Analysts believe that the Japanese company is leading the sales performance recovery of the world’s automakers. 　

The carmaker announced Friday that it sold 859,448 units in April, a 103 percent increase from last year, in which it sold 423,302 cars. It recorded sales increase for eight consecutive months year-on-year. In March, it had the best monthly sales record since its foundation in 1937 by selling 982,912 vehicles. The sales volume from January to April was 3,319,572 units, a 33.4 percent increase than the previous year. 　

The hike in the sales volume lies in the fact that the company is showing its strength in the automobile chip shortage. The company had production suspension or reduction due to the chip crisis only in factories in the U.S., Canada and the Czech Republic, which means production is continuing without a hitch in most factories in Japan, China, South East Asia, Central and South America and Africa. Only two factories in Japan are planning to halt production in June due to a fire at the factory of Renesas Electronics, a local chipmaker, in March. 　

It has a procurement system that gives it one to four months of inventory for each part and shares detailed medium-to-long term production plans with part providers. The vendors can stably increase their production volume without fearing dead stock. The automotive industry believes that this is the company’s secret in the chip shortage. 　

The recovered demand in the U.S. and China also had an impact in this. The sales was especially good in China compared to other automakers. It increased sales by 45.1 percent year-on-year in the U.S. by selling 842,377 units from January to April, and 53.2 percent in China by selling 633,849 units. Hyundai Motor Group increased sales by 41.8 percent in the U.S. over the same period, but only by 5.5 percent in China. Meanwhile, Toyota’s sales in China exceeded that in Japan in 2019, which made China Toyota’s second largest market after the U.S.


Hyung-Seok Seo skytree08@donga.com