Mumbai: Japan's Toyota Motor Corporation moved a step closer to unseating rival General Motors Corporation of the US as the world's biggest automaker when it outsold the latter by around 90,000 vehicles in the first quarter of the current year.

While both Toyota and General Motors reported record sales for January-March, Japan's top carmaker inched past GM as it ate into the home market share of the Detroit behemoth.

Toyota, maker of the Camry sedan, the most popular car in the US, said its global vehicle sales rose 9 per cent in the quarter to 2.35 million units. That compares with a three per cent rise in GM's first quarter sales at 2.26 million units.

GM, which sells cars and trucks under a dozen brands, including Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Opel and Saab, said last week put its global market share at around 13.0 per cent, down a tenth of a percentage point from a year ago.

The Lexus luxury brand and the youth-oriented Scion badge, as well as vehicles led Toyota's challenge from units Daihatsu Motor Co. and Hino Motors Ltd.

Toyota has hooked customers around the world with affordable cars that are reliable, durable and fuel-efficient, while GM continued to rely heavily on high-margin but gas-guzzling vehicles to pull it out of financial difficulties. GM's significant growth has been confined to the Chinese market.

Toyota is adding production capacity the world over with an internal goal of taking 15 per cent of the global car market by 2010.

GM estimated its share in the first quarter at 13.0 per cent, down one-tenth of a percentage point from a year ago.

This year, Toyota group has plans to sell 9.34 million vehicles, up six per cent from 2006. GM does not provide a global sales forecast.

Meanwhile, Toyota last year had to recall over a million vehicles in Japan and 760,000 in the United States, which raised concerns that the company was stretching itself too thin too fast. Toyota has in fact stepped up its quality vigil, assigning two executive vice presidents to oversee the effort.

Toyota dwarfs its rivals in almost every measure, including profits, market capitalisation and cash reserves. Its market capitalisation, at $225 billion, is more than 12 times that of GM's.

Toyota expects to post a net profit of 1.55 trillion yen ($13 billion) for the business year ended March, probably more than any Japanese company, while GM is struggling to make money. It lost $3 billion in 2006 and $12 billion the year before.

Toyota, which is aggressively marketing new models all over the world, has been widely expected to challenge 99-year-old GM this year for the top spot in global sales -- a position the US carmaker has held for 76 years.

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