In the global automotive industry chain, Japan is more dependent on the automotive industry than Germany. Without Toyota, Japan's position in the global auto industry would have taken a back seat. Recently, Toyota released its financial report data for 2023, and its sales continue to grow, firmly occupying the position of the world's largest car company.
Operating profit nearly doubled to approximately 5.35 trillion yen, an increase of approximately 2.63 trillion yen from the previous fiscal year. Toyota also became the first company in the history of Japan to have an operating profit of more than 5 trillion yen.
Compared with the auto giant Toyota, the largest company in mainland China in terms of revenue is SAIC, followed by China FAW and BYD. As the largest car company in the mainland, how far is it from Toyota?
Toyota: The history of the beginning of the automobile empire
Kiichiro Toyoda, the founder of Toyota Motor Group, was born in 1895, and his family is a well-known textile giant in Japan. In 1929, Kiichiro Toyoda was sent by his father to Europe and the United States to visit automobile production in these countries, and after returning to Japan, he began to study automobile manufacturing. Finally, in 1931, Kiichiro Toyoda succeeded in developing the first 4-horsepower automobile engine. After that, by disassembling American and German cars, Toyota built its first car in 1935.
After World War II, Toyota Motor took advantage of the rise of the Japanese economy and began to grow rapidly. In 1962, Toyota's production exceeded the million mark for the first time and began to expand into Europe.
In 1965, the Japanese government lifted tariff barriers on imported cars, and since then Toyota has started a real competition with foreign automakers in terms of performance and price. In 1971, Toyota's annual production reached 2 million vehicles, making it the world's third-largest automaker.
In the 70s, the outbreak of the oil crisis caused Toyota to transform into fuel-efficient small cars, and Toyota began to invest in factories in the United States, and by the 90s it had become the largest overseas brand in the American car market. However, during this period, Toyota's corporate profits could not compete with giants such as GM and Ford. In the mid-90s, Toyota's profit was about $2.5 billion, compared to $4.5 billion for General Motors and more than $7 billion for Ford in the same period.
Since 2000, Toyota has implemented a cost-reduction program under the leadership of Toshiaki Watanabe in order to reduce costs and increase efficiency. Watanabe ordered to combine multiple parts into standard assemblies and eliminate unnecessary parts to reduce the cost of parts as much as possible. For example, the number of types of door armrests has been reduced from 35 to 3, and the number of car horns has been reduced from 28 to 22.
In 2008, it became the world's largest car company in terms of sales
Under the guidance of Watanabe's strict cost thinking, the number of steel parts used in each Toyota vehicle has been reduced from more than 600 to 500, saving Toyota about $2 billion in production costs every year. In the 2008 international financial crisis, Toyota surpassed General Motors of the United States with sales of 8.97 million units, and became the world's largest auto sales in one fell swoop.
In recent years, in the face of the menacing tide of new energy vehicles, Toyota has been unable to help but fall behind and continue to make great progress. According to the released financial report data, in the entire 2023 fiscal year, Toyota's global sales will be 9.44 million units, an increase of 7% over 2022, which is about equivalent to the total sales of electric vehicles in China last year.
If you add the sub-brands of Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino under the Toyota Group, Toyota's global sales will reach 11.09 million units.
It is worth noting that for every car sold by Toyota in 2023, the average profit will be 21,000 yuan, an increase of nearly 2 times compared to 2022. It is close to 21% gross margin, which is more than 2 points higher than Tesla.
There is still a big gap between Chinese car companies and Toyota
China's No. 1 car company is SAIC, how big is the gap with Toyota?
According to the 2023 financial report released by SAIC, the annual revenue is 744.7 billion yuan, and Toyota of Japan is equivalent to 2.25 trillion yuan (the same below), and SAIC's revenue is about one-third of Toyota. SAIC's annual net profit was 14.1 billion yuan, and Toyota's was about 245 billion yuan, and the gap between the net profit of the two was even larger than the revenue gap. To put it more intuitively, Toyota's net profit in 2023 will exceed the net profit of China's top ten car companies combined.
Another sales figure, SAIC's global sales are 5.02 million units, equivalent to 46% of Toyota's. It can be seen that whether it is revenue, net profit, or sales, there is still a big gap between SAIC and Toyota Group. This is also a microcosm of the gap between China's fuel vehicle industry and Japan.
According to the current business situation of Toyota Motor in Japan, it will continue to maintain its advantages in the global market in the next few years.