Toyota Sold More Than GM In 2007

There are some news on the net which tell that GM has sold more than Toyota in 2007. But that's not true. The numbers of both automakers looked too close to call, but GM was counting its sales in China in its overall total.

GM had a solid year in 2007, with sales growing all over the world (except in the U.S.), but it is now the world’s second-largest automaker. GM had included 516,435 vehicles of the Wuling brand in China as part of its total, despite owning a minority share in the operation.

The industry practise is to only include sales of majority-owned subsidiaries, which meant GM slipped well behind Toyota with 8,885,599 sales in 2007, while the Toyota managed an estimated 9,370,000. Official figures from Toyota will be released in a few weeks.

Other manufacturers such as Ford, are also not allowed to count sales of minority owned subsidiaries such as Mazda (Ford owns 33.4 percent of Mazda).