General Motors Corp., which has reigned for 76 years as the world's top automaker, ended 2007 in a virtual tie with Japanese rival Toyota Motor Corp., sales figures from the US giant showed Wednesday.
GM, which has faced a steady loss of market share in its key home market, was widely expected to concede the top spot after Toyota reported higher anticipated global production in December.
But a strong fourth quarter gave GM enough fuel for a photo finish: GM reported global sales of 9,369,524 vehicles, compared with Toyota's preliminary report earlier this month which was rounded to 9.370 million.
“The race is too close to call. It's impossible to say,” Mike DiGiovanni, GM's director of global product planning, said in a conference call.
“Obviously we're very competitive here at GM and of course we'd like to win,” he said. “But what we're really focused on is running our business for the long-term profitably and growing.”
The US automaker applauded its preliminary 2007 results as the second best global total in its 100-year history and the third consecutive year in which it sold more than nine million vehicles worldwide.
GM has been the world's best-selling automaker since 1931 with an all-time record of selling 9.55 million vehicles in 1978.
The Detroit firm's sales grew three percent in 2007 while Toyota sales increased six percent.
Both have faced trouble at home, with GM's sales down 5 percent to 1.1 million in North America and Toyota's domestic sales down 4.0 percent to 2.26 million vehicles in 2007.
But while Toyota has managed to maintain steady profit growth, GM has been hit by record losses as it shutters factories and lays of tens of thousands of workers.
DiGiovanni said the US automaker is already reaping the benefits of its massive restructuring plan with a renewed focus on long-term profitability rather than total sales.
GM lost billions as it propped up weak domestic demand for its vehicles with costly cash incentives for customers and low-margin sales to rental car companies.
Its financial outlook improved dramatically when its main union agreed to accept massive layoffs, allowed GM to weaken job security rules and made significant concession on costly health care benefits.
“We think we're laying the foundation to turn around in the US as evidence of our retail sales being stable for a long time now,” DiGiovanni said.
“I think we've done a heck of a job in positioning ourselves very well in the world in where the growth is in terms of the emerging markets.”
Sales outside the United States now account for about 59 percent of total sales at 5.5 million vehicles.
GM was the top-selling automaker in China at 1.03 million vehicles and became the first global automaker to exceed one million vehicles sold there, the company said.
Its sales nearly doubled in Russia to 258,000 vehicles and it set a record in Brazil with nearly 500,000 vehicles sold.
Sales in the Asia Pacific region rose 15.1 percent to 1.44 million vehicles in 2007.
European sales increased 8.9 percent to 2.18 million vehicles while sales in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East rose 19.4 percent to 1.24 million vehicles.
GM's global fourth quarter sales rose 4.8 percent to 2.3 million vehicles.
GM shares closed up 8.67 percent at 25.70.
