Toyota crowned world’s best-selling carmaker in 2022, third year in a row



It seems that not only were you searching for ‘Toyota’ last year, you lot were buying them by the truckloads, too. The Japanese carmaker has just announced its annual sales report for 2022, where it recorded a total of 9,566,961 units sold worldwide. Despite a 0.5% decline over the previous year, that figure still firmly places Toyota at the top of the leaderboard as the world’s best-selling carmaker for 2022, ahead of Volkswagen Group.

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In fact, Toyota actually outpaced Volkswagen by quite a considerable margin. The German carmaker – across all of its brands – moved a total of 8,262,800 units, representing a 7% decline compared to 2021. For the Toyota Group, with Daihatsu and commercial vehicle manufacturer Hino included, that figure rises up to 10,483,024 units – a 0.1% reduction.

Both of these car giants can likely attribute their decline in sales to the supply chain issue, as well as the silicon chip shortage – both of which have been plaguing the automotive industry for the better part of the last two years.

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“The situation remains difficult to predict due to semiconductor shortages and Covid-19. However, we will continue to carefully monitor the parts supply situation and minimize sudden decreases in production as much as possible while making every effort to deliver as many vehicles to our customers at the earliest date,” Toyota said in a statement.

In spite of the challenges, however, Toyota’s global production was actually up 5.2% compared to the previous year, with a whopping 9,026,713 units manufactured (Toyota Group: 10,610,604). The majority of the heavylifting was actually done by production outside of Japan (up 11.7%), thanks to increased capacity and product optimisation in North America and Asia. For the carmaker’s home country, production shrunk by 7.7% last year.

Here in Malaysia, Toyota also picked up the title of the best-selling non-national carmaker with 100,042 units sold, inclusive of the Hilux pick-up truck. For purely passenger cars, however, Honda Malaysia takes the cake with 80,200 units sold, compared to Toyota’s 72,844.

Toyota Malaysia has a busy year ahead planned for 2023, with multiple new models planned for Malaysia, including the fully-electric bZ4X, alongside a new hybrid model, plus a trio of GR vehicles consisting of the GR Corolla, GR86, and manual GR Supra.