General Motors last week posted its largest quarterly loss for over a decade, while rival Ford saw its profits tumble 38pc and said its car making business would break even at best this year.By contrast, Toyota is expected to follow Honda and Nissan in reporting record profits for the past year.
That punctuality we saw in the previous post pays some big dividends too- the big picture is the emphasis on the bottom line and knocking competition over by share excellence-In Japan, punctuality proved deadly-Across the country, the accident has already caused much soul-searching over Japan's attention - some would say obsession - with punctuality and efficiency. To many, the driver's single-minded focus on making up the 90 seconds seemed to reveal the weak points of a society where the trains do really run on time, but where people have lost sight of the bigger picture.
-We mustn't go too far with our US success, says Toyota
By David Litterick in New York (Filed: 27/04/2005)
Japanese carmakers should give their US rivals some breathing space or risk a political backlash, the chairman of Toyota said yesterday.
Hiroshi Okuda said he feared the success of Asian companies, which have grabbed nearly a third of the US car market, could prompt a trade war if politicians seek to protect the domestic industry.
Hiroshi Okuda
General Motors last week posted its largest quarterly loss for over a decade, while rival Ford saw its profits tumble 38pc and said its carmaking business would break even at best this year.
By contrast, Toyota is expected to follow Honda and Nissan in reporting record profits for the past year.
"We need to give time for some American companies to take a breath," Mr Okuda said.
"Although a trade conflict, like ones in the past, may be avoided, there may be some impact because the car industry is symbolic in the US economy. As an automaker we have to think about what countermeasures we can take."
Mr Okuda, who is also chairman of Japanese employers' group Keidanran, suggested technical alliances or voluntary price rises were possible.
However Toyota appeared to backtrack when a spokesman for the company said pricing "should be determined by the market".
Honda vice-president Koichi Amemiya also dismissed price rises as out of the question.
"I realise that GM, as well as Ford, are suffering financially," he said. "But that doesn't mean you ignore the customer and raise your prices."
Japanese firms faced political tensions in the 1980s as workers accused them of taking jobs away from the US workforce and dumping unfairly cheap goods on the American market.
The carmakers responded by switching production from Japan and opening more US plants. They employ 1.8m people in the country, compared with 1.3m a decade ago.
However Rick Wagoner, chief executive of GM, has repeatedly complained that the yen is too weak, giving Japanese manufacturers an unfair advantage.
Toyota last year beat DaimlerChrysler to take third place in the US market. The companies' cars are rated by consumers as more reliable, and US models are frequently seen as tired, dated and of poorer quality.
As Japanese manufacturers steal a march on their US rivals in car production, the likes of GM and Ford have increasingly tried to focus on the SUV and trucks market, although their foreign rivals are beefing up competition in that sector too.
Honda yesterday reported a 27pc rise in net profit to Y95billion (£470m) against a year earlier, while Nissan posted a profit of Y517billion for the same period. |
