Toyota may overtake GM in 2006

(CBC) - Toyota Motor Corp. may well become the world's largest automaker next year, as it slowly cuts into the U.S. and world markets of General Motors.

But Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe shrugged off such accolades at a speech at the company's headquarters in Nagoya, Japan on Tuesday, saying his company just provides what the customer wants.

"We try to prepare our production and sales to respond to customer needs in every region," he told Associated Press. "I am not thinking much about whether we will become No. 1 in the world as a result of that."

Whatever his motivation, the bottom line is that Toyota expects to make 9.06 million vehicles in 2006, a 10-per-cent increase from the 8.25 million vehicles that it will make this year.

Those numbers include its subsidiaries, Hino and Daihatsu. But even without them, Toyota is forecasting production of 8.11 million vehicles in 2006, up 10 per cent from 7.37 million vehicles in 2005.

Those numbers put Toyota neck and neck with GM.

GM does not provide full-year production targets, but it built 6.7 million vehicles during the first three quarters of this year and expects to produce about nine million vehicles by year end.

But Toyota has been growing while GM has been stumbling, losing market share to Toyota and its Japanese rivals.

GM's U.S. market share fell to 26.2 per cent in the first 10 months of this year, compared with 33 per cent a decade ago. And GM has been losing a lot of money, $1.6 billion US in the third quarter, with more losses expected by year end.

GM is restructuring its operations in a bid to keep up with the competition. It plans to close 12 plants by 2008 with the loss of 30,000 jobs, or 27 per cent of its North American manufacturing payroll.

A GM spokesman was not immediately available.