Toyota has seen its U.S. market share has slid from 17% for all of 2009 to 11.5% last month. In the auto world, that’s huge. Toyota, which at one point was nipping at Ford as the country’s second largest seller of vehicles, was passed in sales and market share last month by a Chrysler Group. Ouch.
Toyota’s slide is due largely to recalls over unintended acceleration in 2009 and 2010, and the March earthquake and tsunami in Japan that damaged parts plants and cut Toyota’s production, causing shortages of cars on dealer lots, the Associated Press says.
But Toyota’s diminished sales could last, gulp, for years, says an analyst quoted yesterday by the AP:
Jefferies Co. analyst Peter Nesvold writes in a note to investors that Detroit automakers and others have made so much progress on quality that Toyota no longer stands out. “Quality is now a given,” he wrote. “Toyota’s historical reputation for quality was no longer the differentiating factor that it had been for many years.”
Nesvold wrote that he spoke to a contact at a top auto parts maker who is concerned that Toyota’s market share is sliding because its cars and trucks are starting to look stale. The slide can be reversed with smarter designs, the contact told Nesvold. “This could take several years, or at least one product cycle, to implement — assuming that the company internally has already made such a decision,” Nesvold wrote.
The AP said it couldn’t reach a Toyota official for comment, but Toyota executives have pointed to an onslaught of new cars and trucks on the way that they think will juice sales. They also say that the supply line of cars and trucks has recovered enough from the Japan crisis that the automaker will show a sales increase this month for the first time since last spring.