VW Plans To Overtake Toyota (TM) And GM (GM) In Worldwide Sales
Bold words. VW says that by 2010 it can produce 10 million vehicles and pass Toyota (NYSE: TM) and GM (NYSE: GM) as the world’s largest car company. According to the Times "To those who suggest that closing a 3m…
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Bold words. VW says that by 2010 it can produce 10 million vehicles and pass Toyota (NYSE: TM) and GM (NYSE: GM) as the world’s largest car company. According to the Times "To those who suggest that closing a 3m vehicle gap (Toyota produced 9.4m last year) is a very tall order, company management explains that, in 2006, the number of conventional passenger cars made by Volkswagen and Toyota was fairly similar – 5.2m for Volkswagen and 5.5m for Toyota – and that the difference is made up by 4x4s, “people carriers” and light trucks."
Volkswagen only recently introduced a full range of these multi-purpose vehicles. They will play an important part in its future growth
VW may find that things don’t go as planned. As a new entrant to the pick-up and SUV markets, the company will find global competition for not just Toyota and GM, but also Ford (NYSE: F), Nissan, and Honda (NYSE: HMC). Most large countries also have local car manufacturers who may not be anxious to give up a large piece of their business.
While VW may have a chance to get a reasonable piece of the auto sales in huge countries like China, it has almost no market share in the world’s largest car-buying nation, the US. Taking away business from a desperate company like Ford and a successful company like Toyota may be nearly impossible.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.
