Toyota keeps title as top carmaker with record sales in 2025

By Nicholas TakahashiBloomberg

Toyota Motor Corp. retained its title because the world’s largest automaker for a sixth 12 months and prolonged its lead over Volkswagen AG by posting report gross sales regardless of buying and selling market turmoil and rising competitors.

World gross sales in 2025 – together with these of the Daihatsu Motor Co. subsidiaries. and Hino Motors Ltd. – rose 4.6% from the earlier 12 months to 11.3 million models, the corporate stated Thursday. Manufacturing elevated by 5.7% to 11.2 million. The VW group’s complete turnover fell by 0.5% to 9 million automobiles.

The figures present that Toyota has managed to remain heading in the right direction, regardless of US President Donald Trump’s commerce struggle and the rise of Chinese language automotive producers. World automakers warn they’ll undergo billions of {dollars} in losses from tariffs as they elevate costs, shift manufacturing to the U.S. or lower manufacturing.

Toyota and Lexus branded automobiles within the U.S. noticed an 8% improve in gross sales and an almost 10% improve in manufacturing, largely as a result of a restoration within the reputation of gas-electric hybrids. Whole gross sales in Japan, which represented roughly 18% of the worldwide complete, elevated by 12%.

Trump imposed a 15% tariff on Japan that may have an effect on all vehicles and auto components imported into the US. Whereas the island nation dodged a bullet by speaking the president out of upper taxes, that also represented a major improve from the earlier 2.5% charges. Most Japanese automakers tried to mitigate the influence by taking steps to extend manufacturing within the US, however nonetheless collectively suffered billions of yen in losses because of this.

Honda Motor Co.’s annual worldwide gross sales fell by 7.5% to three.5 million copies. That included a 24% decline in China, it stated on Thursday. Manufacturing shrank by 9%.

Nissan Motor Co. offered roughly 3.2 million automobiles, down 4.4% from the earlier 12 months.

Amongst its friends, Toyota was one of many few to regain some stability in China, the place home electrical automobile manufacturers led by BYD Co. have claimed a big share of the world’s largest passenger automotive market. BYD, which purchased Tesla Inc. final 12 months by Elon Musk because the world’s largest EV producer, delivering 4.6 million automobiles in 2025 – nearly half of them absolutely electrical.

In contrast, Toyota offered just below 200,000 battery electrical vehicles final 12 months. Solely 4,227 models have been delivered to clients in Japan, the place they’ve but to interrupt by means of, as in different main markets.