Toyota Predicts Record Sales In 2012

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 4, 10:01AM EST

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Perhaps it is the fact that all of its plants are back online after the March Japan earthquake, or that US car sales in general are so robust. Toyota (NYSE: TM) forecast the its sales in the current year will be a record–9.58 million. The Japanese car company is part of a competition with GM (NYSE: GM) and VW for which will be the No.1 manufacturer in the world, based on volume.

Toyota still has to face the challenge of the damage done to its brand when it recalled nearly 8 million cars at the start of 2010. It must also contend with a weak market in Europe which will be draw back for all companies that do business there. And Toyota runs well behind GM and VW in China sales. The market is worth 18 million units a year, although growth in the People’s Republic slowed considerably

According to the WSJ

Toyota Motor Corp. is aiming for record sales on a group-wide basis in 2012, expecting both the domestic and overseas markets to grow by double digits.

Toyota expects to sell 9.58 million vehicles globally, including those by its subsidiaries, Daihatsu Motor Co. and Hino Motors Ltd. That would be a rise of 21% from last year and would top the company’s current record of 9.37 million in 2007.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

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.