Toyota stays world's largest auto firm for third year

Driven by record US deliveries of its SUVs, the world's largest automaker, Toyota Motor Corp, stayed ahead of its nearest rival Volkswagen AG to remain the world's top-selling automaker for a third consecutive year,.

Worldwide sales for Toyota, including its arms Hino Motors Ltd and Daihatsu Motor Co, climbed 3 per cent to 10.23 million vehicles last year, according to a company statement.

Volkswagen last week reported a 4.2 per cent gain to 10.14 million vehicles, including its two heavy-truck units. General Motors Co followed with 9.92 million sales, up 2.1 per cent.

Surging demand for Toyota's sports utility vehicles, including the compact RAV4 and mid-size Highlander, led the company's US market share gain last year, spurring plans to boost local production and exports from Japan this year.

Toyota forecasts a 1 per cent decline in annual sales to 10.15 million vehicles in 2015, the Toyota City, Japan-based car maker said in a statement.

Volkswagen and GM have not announced projections for this year.

Toyota is predicting a decline in sales this year because of an expected slump in demand in Japan, where the consumption tax increase last year had brought forward many purchases, spokeswoman Kayo Doi said.

Last year, Toyota's sales gained in the US, Europe, China and Brazil, while deliveries in Thailand and Indonesia slumped, according to the company.

The automaker's shares fell 1.3 per cent to 7,556 yen as of 2:17 p.m. in Tokyo trading. The benchmark Topix index slid 0.9 per cent.

Akio Toyoda, 58, the founder's grandson, has reined in the building of new plants following sudden unintended acceleration recalls in 2009 and 2010 and Japan's tsunami the next year. The factory freeze was a response to those crises early in Toyoda's tenure. Overexpansion before he became president had contributed to the car maker's first annual loss in almost six decades.

Sales in the US for Toyota climbed 6.2 per cent to 2.37 million units last year in the US, outpacing growth for GM, the largest US carmaker, according to researcher Autodata Corp.

Record SUV deliveries helped Toyota quadruple Volkswagen's sales, which dropped 2.9 per cent, Autodata said.

In China, Toyota sells less than one-third as many vehicles as Volkswagen or GM, which have pledged to continue building local factories to supply a market forecast to expand to another record of more than 25 million vehicles this year.

GM's China sales rose 12 per cent last year to 3.54 million vehicles, while mainland China and Hong Kong accounted for a record 3.67 million deliveries at Volkswagen last year, up 12 percent and extending the country's lead as the German manufacturer's largest single market.

By contrast, Toyota delivered fewer vehicles in China last year than it targeted as slowing growth and vehicle stockpiles led some of its dealers to threaten to drop out of its sales network. Sales climbed 12.5 percent to 1.03 million units, missing its projection for 1.1 million. The company maintained the same target for this year.

VW plans to raise annual production capacity in China to 4 million units by 2018.