"Volkswagen AG will probably become the world’s biggest carmaker this year, vaulting past Toyota Motor Corp. and General Motors Co. on gains in emerging markets.
The German company’s sales, third among carmakers in 2010, will probably rise 13 percent to 8.1 million vehicles this year, based on the average of three analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. GM sales will gain about 8 percent to 7.55 million, while Toyota will drop 9 percent to 7.27 million, according to the survey.
VW sales in China may rise almost 20 percent in 2011 and more than double in India, according to estimates at researcher J.D. Power & Associates. That’s a contrast to Toyota, which is suspending Southeast Asian plants because of floods in Thailand, months after an earthquake crippled production in Japan.
“Emerging markets are at a stage of car-adoption by consumers and there is still a large space for sales to grow. said Jenny Gu, Shanghai-based senior markets analyst for J.D. Power. ‘‘VW realized this and put a lot of effort on emerging markets.’’
Estimates at J.D. Powers, IHS Automotive and PwC Autofacts were used to calculate the average projections.
Volkswagen had fallen 3.3 percent this year in German trading before today, weighed by concerns about the European debt crisis. Still, that’s a smaller decline than the 34 percent drop at Detroit-based GM and 20 percent at Toyota.
NEXT YEAR’S LEAD
Toyota may regain the lead from VW next year as the recovery of the Japanese company’s facilities from the March earthquake will pave the way for the Toyota City-based automaker to sell 8.4 million cars, or half a million units more than VW, according to research firm IHS Automotive. J.D. Power projects VW will retain its lead in 2012, outselling Toyota by about 50,000 units.
‘‘Growth in China, Europe and the U.S. are major contributors to VW’s expansion but they obviously also benefit from Toyota’s own misfortunes,” said Daniel Schwarz, a Frankfurt-based analyst at Commerzbank AG who recommends buying VW stock. Schwarz forecast the Japanese passenger-car market to increase by a quarter next year after shrinking by about a fifth in 2011.
Wolfsburg, Germany-based VW, which also owns the Audi and Skoda brands, focused on boosting capacity and its network of dealerships as it built its brand in markets such as China and India, Gu said in a telephone interview.
CHINESE GROWTH
Automakers are turning to developing economies for growth as sales in mature markets slow. China, the world’s second- largest economy, will grow 9.5 percent this year, six times the pace of the U.S. and euro area, according to International Monetary Fund estimates last month. The country is already the biggest auto market globally, with sales exceeding 18 million in 2010.
VW sales in China will probably reach 2.3 million units and 116,000 in India this year, with the two markets accounting for about a third of the company’s sales, according to J.D. Power estimates.
VW, which operates more than 60 factories worldwide, plans to spend a record 62.4 billion euros ($87 billion) -- excluding its ventures in China -- over the next five years to raise annual production to 10 million by 2018. VW’s Chinese joint ventures, which are not consolidated, will invest another 14 billion euros through 2016. The German company may reach the target three years ahead of schedule, according to a person familiar with the matter." [Continue reading...]
No comments:
Post a Comment