Toyota Motor Corp. delayed its plans to become the world's first auto maker to sell more than 10 million vehicles annually, the latest sign that global auto makers are bracing for a long slowdown as robust sales to developing markets fail to offset losses in the crumbling U.S. market.
The Japanese auto maker, which is closing in on General Motors Corp. as the world's largest auto maker by sales volume, said Thursday that it aims to sell 9.7 million vehicles next year, backpedaling from the target of 10.4 million vehicles it set a year ago.
The lower target is a rare setback for Toyota, whose robust sales and profit growth this decade made it appear impervious to the challenges facing other auto makers, particularly the Big Three in Detroit.
It also underscored how the stagnation threatening the auto industry world-wide likely will continue well into next year.
'Things remain nebulous and uncertain,' Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe said.
When Toyota announced the sales target of 10.4 million last August, the company was confident that surging demand for new vehicles in fast-growing markets like China, India and Russia would make up for any softness in the U.S., which was souring amid the subprime crisis.
But the past 12 months have delivered more bad news for the auto industry than anyone imagined, making it difficult for Toyota and other auto makers to use emerging-market sales to offset huge U.S. losses. Sales of big trucks and sport-utility vehicles, once the cornerstone of the U.S. market, have plummeted as gas prices have soared. Prices are up for steel and other materials needed to build cars, eating into profits. Auto makers, including Toyota, are setting aside millions of dollars in leased-vehicle losses as used-car prices plummet.
Toyota last month cut its 2008 global sales forecast by 350,000 units to 9.5 million. Last year, it sold 9.37 million vehicles. Toyota says it expects demand in the U.S. to improve but it doesn't know when it might reach its goal of selling more than 10 million vehicles.
Toyota cut its 2009 sales target for North America to 2.7 million vehicles, down from its original target of 3.1 million. Even as sales of its trucks and SUVs have declined this year, Toyota continues to gain market share in the U.S. because of its lineup of smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles and the weakness of its Detroit rivals. Toyota held 16.8% of the U.S. auto market for January to July, up from 16.3% in the same period last year.
Toyota trimmed its 2009 Europe sales plan to 1.3 million units from 1.45 million. For Asia, the target dropped to 1.75 million from 1.9 million. In the Middle East, South America and other markets, sales projections increased to 1.7 million from 1.55 million.
Mr. Watanabe said that after years of rapid growth, Toyota would use this slower period to restructure its operations: making its production system in the U.S. more nimble to adjust to changing market demands, pushing deeper into the world's emerging markets and developing more hybrid cars and other fuel-efficient vehicles.
Toyota said that early next year it will unveil the next generation of its best-selling Prius hybrid and a new Lexus hybrid, part of its goal of selling one million hybrids a year in the early 2010s. While the focus of Toyota's future growth remains hybrid vehicles, Mr. Watanabe said that by early next decade, it would start producing an electric car, offering a challenge to the plans by Japanese rivals Nissan Motor Co. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. to mass-produce electric vehicles in the next two years.
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丰田汽车(Toyota Motor Corp.)下调了其2009年全球汽车销量目标，从而推迟了其年销量突破1,000万辆&#12289;成为全球头号汽车制造商的计划。这一决定显示，由于发展中市场的强劲销售无法抵消美国市场的疲软需求，全球汽车制造商已做好进入长时间下滑期的准备。
丰田汽车周四表示，计划明年销售970万辆汽车，低于去年设定的1,040万辆的目标。通用汽车(General Motors Corp.)目前是全球销量最大的汽车商，但丰田正在逐渐逼近。
对丰田来说，下调销量目标的举动颇为罕见；凭藉强劲的销售和收益增长，其他汽车制造商（尤其是底特律三雄）面临的困难似乎并没有影响到丰田汽车。
这种状况也昭示，经济陷入滞胀给全球汽车业带来的威胁可能还会持续到明年。
丰田总裁渡边捷昭(Katsuaki Watanabe)表示，行业前景仍然扑朔迷离，充满不确定性。
去年8月宣布1,040万辆的销量目标时，丰田相信尽管美国市场因为次级抵押贷款危机而需求疲软，但中国&#12289;印度与俄罗斯等飞速增长的市场不断飙升的新车需求足以抵消这一不利影响。
然而，过去12个月汽车业遭遇了出乎意料的不利消息，使得丰田和其他汽车商难以凭借新兴市场销量来抵消美国市场需求的锐减。随着汽油价格一路飙升，美国汽车市场曾经的支柱──大卡车和运动型多用途车(SUV)销量急剧下降。生产汽车所需的钢铁和其他原材料价格也在不断上升，进一步侵蚀了制造商的利润。此外，由于二手车价格大幅下挫，丰田等车商不得不留出数百万美元，作为租车业务的损失准备金。
丰田上个月将今年全球销量预期下调35万辆至950万辆，其去年的销量是937万辆。丰田表示，预计美国市场需求有可能逐渐回升，但不清楚何时才能实现全球年销量突破1,000万辆的目标。
丰田已将明年的北美市场销量目标下调到270万辆，远远低于原定310万辆的目标。尽管今年丰田卡车和SUV销量持续下滑，但凭藉体型较小&#12289;更加省油的款型，丰田在美国的市场占有率在不断上扬；底特律三雄的低迷表现也是重要原因。今年1至7月，丰田在美国的市场占有率达到了16.8%，高于去年同期的16.3%。
其他市场方面，丰田将明年欧洲市场销量目标从145万辆下调至130万辆，同期亚洲市场销量目标从190万辆下调至175万辆。但该公司将中东&#12289;南美和其他市场的销量目标从155万辆上调至170万辆。
渡边捷昭表示，经过数年飞速增长之后，丰田汽车可能会利用这段增长放缓的时期重新调整业务结构：提高美国制造体系的灵活性，以适应不断变化的市场需求；深度挖掘全球新兴市场，开发更多混合动力和其他省油车型。
丰田汽车表示，明年初将推出新一代畅销的普瑞斯(Prius)混合动力车和新一代雷克萨斯(Lexus)混合动力车，以实现到2010年代初混合动力车年销量100万辆的目标。尽管丰田未来的增长重点仍是混合动力车，渡边捷昭表示，公司将在2010年代初之前开始生产电动车，以应对国内竞争对手日产汽车(Nissan Motor Co.)和三菱汽车(Mitsubishi Motors Corp.)未来两年大规模生产电动车的计划。
