Toyota group tops global auto sales in 2020 for 1st time in 5 years

Good for them. But this :

However, they recovered in its main markets such as China 

This is very worrying, the gov't should be pushing Japanese companies harder to exit Communist, unpredictable China. Tying your future to a rogue nation is not sustainable. Focus on other stable developing markets.

Toyota Motor Corp group ranked top in global auto sales in 2020 for the first time in five years on a robust pickup in sales in China

This is the most important revelation. China is going to be crucial for Japanese economic survival in the next decades.

No wonder why Fast Retailing is offshoring all Japanese businesses to China and the SEA.

China is going to be crucial for Japanese economic survival in the next decades.

A strategy that will end in disaster for such companies. The only people in 2021 to believe PRC is the future are those who have had their head in the sand for the past year.

My missus is from near Toyota City and we know many people working there or at their suppliers.

Toyota have a dowdy image, but they've been making some pretty cool halo cars recently, the GR Yaris superhot hatch, the Supra (with BMW), and the new 86 out soon. That's supposed to have way more power this time, and could be a real winner. Toyota is doing a much better nod to the glory days of JDM than Honda whose NSX now costs as much as a house.

@fighto

Only a complete idiot would not want to sell cars in China, the world's biggest car market.

Toyota people are not idiots. They sold 1.8 million cars there in 2020, nearly a quarter of their total production.

On the other hand Toyota is way behind on EVs so they partnered with China's BYD. Technology flows both ways.

Happyhere

No need for such harsh words. Fighto is concerned with rising China taking an aggressive approach, many people are concerned about that not just him.

I'm glad to see Toyota doing well. I wish more Japanese companies would do just as well.

If China stays in check, balanced, doesn't start any conflicts then Yes. They are a big market, can help Japan and others, mutual help, China has access to our markets two. It goes both ways, a two way street, China benefits as well from technology and another market to sell their finish goods.

"This is the most important revelation"

The most important revelation is that Chinese and Vietnamese car companies are the most advanced in the World.

With "no impunity".

The most important revelation is that Chinese and Vietnamese car companies are the most advanced in the World.

I'm a hopeless gearhead with some custom cars and motorcycles. We travel to China annually and naturally I am practically getting whiplash from looking at the cars there including models from notionally American car companies not sold outside of China. Sorry but I don't agree. The most advanced cars made in China are foreign brands manufactured there because, well, they mostly can't sell cars in China unless they take a Chinese partner (chosen by the government for the purpose of learning/stealing their knowledge and eventually undercutting them) and manufacturing there. Probably the most advanced car on the streets of Shanghai are Teslas.

Companies with a great deal of exposure to China are in all likelihood going to take severe losses in the near to medium term future. Relations between China and the rest of the developed world except Russia are going to grow steadily worse. China increasingly denies permission for westerners to exit the country and holds them hostage in civil disputes accused of various forms of fraud in business disputes, or held hostage to try to force Chinese living abroad to return home and be prosecuted. Chances of a military confrontation rise more or less constantly now as Xi Jinping and his Wolf Warrior, cough cough, "diplomats" become increasingly belligerent. If there is a clash of any kind western, and especially US and Japanese firms operating in China will lose their Chinese operations. I would estimate the chances are greater than 50% there is some sort of diplomatic, economic and/or military confrontation that leads to China forcing US and many other western firms to leave China.

Keep going up Big T. Toyota always makes good cars.

Love TOYOTA.