Tokyo (JCN) - Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. <7203> must be the world's No. 1 vehicle seller in 2007, as its U.S. rival General Motors Corp. padded global sales disregarding an industrywide practice in compiling sales data, a leading U.S. auto industry journal said Thursday.

It was reported on Wednesday that last year's GM global sales totaled a preliminary 9,369,524 units, narrowly beating Toyota's 9,366,000 units to remain as the top automaker.

But actually, GM "slipped well behind" Toyota in global sales and "is now the world's second largest automaker," the industry weekly Automotive News said online.

"Here is why: GM includes in its total 516,435 vehicles of the Wuling brand in China. But GM owns only 34 percent of the Chinese company that produces Wuling vehicles, SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co.," it pointed out.

In compiling 2007 global sales data, all other automakers followed the industry practice of only including sales of majority-owned subsidiaries. For instance, Mazda Motor Corp.'s sales are excluded from Ford Motor Co.'s total because Ford owns 33.4 pct of the Japanese maker.

"So Automotive News subtracts Wuling-brand sales from GM's reported total, arriving at 8,885,599," it said.

http://www.japancorp.net/printarticle.asp?Art_ID=16781