Toyota sales, year-over-year are now down 6 out of the last 9 months. The Tundra sales while up over last year are terribly disappointing to Toyota. They have the capability to build 30-40,000 Tundra's a month.

are camry hybrids included in the camry #'s?

yes.

This is true.

What is also true is that Toyota makes money on their cars.

Same can't be said for........ all auto manufactures.

Although it appears that Prius January 2008 sales are higher than January of last year, it appears that the month to month sales are going down.

Keith

I don't think month to month sales are figures are relevant to sales goals. That is why they always compare the current month sales to the sales in the same month one year ago.

Hi Winston,

Companies always try to put a positive spin on sales figures. From a financial perspective , month to month sales are always important.

Keith

Nope, not really. Y/Y is all that matters. Historically all 12 months of the years have different trends. Comparing February to March is simply..... Stupid.

What is really important are sales trends over a longer period of time, however the media spends way too much time going over year /year comparisons. You will note that there are many areas of the Toyota sales numbers showing a significant struggle: Scion is really struggling and is this is going relatively unnoticed as yet iin the media. Also the Tundra sales numbers for January are a huge disappointment for toyota even though the PR department spun it another way. Toyota built 18,000 Tundras in January and sold only 12,000, 50% overcapacity is not a problem Toyota likes to deal with.

If you have ever worked for a company that manufactures physical products or have analyzed companies before investing your hard-earned cash in them, month to month sales are very important. However in your defense, in most industries there are seasonal variations in sales that have to be accounted for and Y/Y is one way to spot this trend.. As Malorn correctly states, over capacity (production) is not a problem that companies like to deal with.
Keith

Not a single car manufacture reports month over month. It simply is a useless number in the auto industry.

Everyone, from GM to Hyundai reports Y/Y. There's a reason for that.

Kieth,

Month to month sales, normalized based on seasonal variations is the same as year to year monthly sales. I think we are arguing about terminology.

Nobody is saying that is does not matter how many cars they sell each month. It is just that comparing january sales to december sales is not very relevant.