General Motors Vs Toyota

General Motors has demonstrated the wisdom of US baseball player Yogi Berra's quip that, "it ain't over til it's over” by regaining its crown as the world's biggest car maker in the second quarter.

Toyota toppled GM in the first three months of the year from the throne, which the Detroit car maker has occupied since 1931.

But GM reported global sales of 2.4 million vehicles between April and June, putting it ahead of Toyota's 2.36 million.

The Japanese group remains narrowly ahead over the first half of 2007 and is still widely expected to emerge in the top spot for the year as a whole, based on its forecast of global sales of 9.34 million units compared with GM's 9.2 million.

GM's second-quarter comeback was due to surging sales outside North America, up from 1.36 million in the first quarter to 1.39 million in the second, equal to 58 per cent of total sales. Growth was strong in emerging markets.

GM's sales in Russia more than doubled from a year earlier, driven mainly by its Chevrolet brand. Sales in Europe as a whole reached a new quarterly record. GM is also the biggest car maker in China, where Toyota has, until recently, been a relatively minor player. Brazil posted a 23 per cent jump.

Both companies are struggling on their home turf.

Toyota is confronted with a shrinking domestic market; GM has lost US market share to Asian and European rivals and is cutting back low-margin sales to the car-rental industry.

Toyota's share of the US market, the world's biggest, grew to 16.1 per cent from 14.6per cent a year earlier, according to Autodata. GM's share slumped to 21.7 per cent inJune, its lowest level in decades apart from during a strike in 1998.

Both companies have brushed off the closely watched rivalry.

“We're more concerned about what the customer thinks about our products,” a GM spokesman said.

Toyota has continued to stress its reputation for quality.

Still, GM is not giving up its crown lightly, taking the view that the sales race should be judged on an annual and not a quarterly basis.

Toyota on Friday said it was making efforts to ensure the impact of the Niigata earthquake on domestic production would not hit exports.

All eight of Japan's car makers announced domestic production shutdowns last week due to supply problems at Riken Corp, which makes piston rings and seal rings for transmission parts. Riken's factories were damaged by last Monday's earthquake.

The production setback highlights the low level of inventories Japanese car makers keep due to just-in-time delivery strategies.

It could cost the industry about 65,000 units in production and Y100 billion ($937million) in revenue, according to Kurt Sanger, car industry analyst at Macquarie Securities in Tokyo.