Toyota, as an old car manufacturer, has been sung down, but it has never been surpassed.
Recently, Toyota announced its data for fiscal year 2023.
In fiscal 2023, Toyota's parent company (Toyota and Lexus) sold 10.31 million vehicles worldwide, up 7.3% year-on-year, and produced a total of 9.97 million vehicles, up 9.2% year-on-year, both hitting record highs.
If Daihatsu and Hino are included, Toyota's global sales in fiscal 2023 will reach 11.09 million units, an increase of 5%, and it will still remain firmly in the position of the world's largest car company.
Against the backdrop of continuous record sales volumes, Toyota's revenue and profit also hit the best results in history.
In fiscal year 2023, Toyota's cumulative operating income reached 45.095 trillion yen (equivalent to 2.09 trillion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 21%. The operating profit was 5.353 trillion yen (equivalent to 249 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 96%, exceeding 5 trillion yen for the first time; The net profit was 4.9 trillion yen (equivalent to 228.1 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 101%.
The net profit of 228.1 billion yuan also exceeded the total profit of China's top ten car companies.
In terms of revenue, the top ten car companies in China in 2023 are FAW Group, SAIC Group, BYD Group, Chery Group, BAIC, Geely Automobile, Great Wall Motor, Changan Automobile, GAC Group, and Li Auto.
The total revenue of these top ten automobile groups in 2023 is about 3.26 trillion yuan; In addition to FAW Group and Chery Group, which did not release specific data, the cumulative total profit of the other eight automobile companies was 86.967 billion yuan.
Although Chery and FAW Group are not listed companies and have not released specific profit data, the net profit of these two major auto groups in 2023 should be between 30 billion and 50 billion yuan, which means that the cumulative profit of China's top ten auto groups in 2023 will basically not exceed 200 billion yuan, and should be between 150 billion and 190 billion yuan.
However, in 2023, the total profit of Toyota Group will reach about 249 billion yuan, which is equivalent to the net profit of Toyota alone is more than 50 billion yuan more than the net profit of China's top 10 cars, and if China's loss-making automobile companies are also counted, Toyota even has more profits than China's top 20 cars.
Isn't it surprising to see this?
In recent years, under the background of the rapid development of new energy vehicles in the mainland, Toyota's market in China has been declining.
According to the data released by FAW Toyota and GAC Toyota, Toyota's cumulative sales in China in 2023 will be 1.701 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 12.36%.
This is the second year that Toyota's sales in China have declined. In 2022, Toyota's vehicle sales in the Chinese market will be 1,940,600 units, down 0.2% from 2021.
After entering 2024, Toyota's sales in China continued to decline, and in the first quarter of 2024, Toyota's sales in China were 374,000 units, down 1.6% year-on-year.
Unlike Toyota's sales in China, which have been declining, sales of China's own brand cars have continued to soar in recent years.
In 2023, BYD's auto sales will reach 3.012 million units, a year-on-year increase of 61.8%; Chery Automobile sold 1,783,300 units, a year-on-year increase of 55%; Geely Automobile sold 1,688,500 units, a year-on-year increase of 17.7%...
The continuous rapid growth of Chinese auto brands has indeed put pressure on Japanese car companies, and many people even say that Toyota is dying.
However, Toyota has been declining, but it has been moving forward.
On the one hand, Toyota is bombarding China's new energy vehicles, but on the other hand, it is silently working the new energy vehicle track.
Although Toyota's sales in China have declined in recent years, sales in the international market have shown slow growth, which has allowed them to maintain their position as the world's largest car company.
In 2023, among the 10.31 million sales of Toyota and Lexus, the sales of hybrid models will reach 4.47 million, an increase of 24.5% year-on-year, and hybrid models have become an important driving force for Toyota's sales growth.
In addition to hybrid models, they are actually silently producing pure electric vehicles that Toyota despises, and in 2023, their sales of pure electric vehicles will also reach more than 100,000 units.
It is thanks to the rapid growth of new energy vehicles that they have retained the throne of the world's largest car company.
Although China's new energy vehicles have grown very rapidly in recent years, there is still a big gap with Toyota in terms of global market share and influence.
Especially in recent years, there has been a price war within Chinese auto companies, and the profits of China's auto industry have continued to be compressed, and the net profit margin of China's auto industry has been compressed to less than 4%.
As a result, although China's car sales and revenue are high, the net profit is very small, and the profits of the top 20 car companies combined are not 200 billion yuan, and many of them are in the red.
Although this kind of price war can bring sales growth in the short term, in the long run, it will actually be very harmful to automobile companies and the mainland automotive industry.
In the context of continuous compression of profits, enterprises can reduce the funds available for research and development, and even in order to save costs, some companies may cut corners in the production process, which will reduce the competitiveness of Chinese automobiles in the long run.
Therefore, I think the price war of domestic car companies should be regulated, and car companies cannot be allowed to reduce prices arbitrarily, which is a great damage to the ecology of the automotive industry.