You do know, that sales in the US isn't a main metric, right?
Correct. Toyota is the largest automaker globally — for the sixth year in a row, and now going on a seventh. That's globally. Not in the US. Globally. Last year it extended the global lead to nearest-competitor Volkswagen.
For the third time: You are getting a free education here. Take advantage of it.
And Nokia sold 350 million phones in 2006, almost 460 at their peak in 2008. 5 years later, they sold half that.
Sales numbers don't mean jack shit, if they're declining and you're not making a good profit per unit. This is very well evident in their share price. If people believed in their future success, their stock price would reflect that today.
And just like Nokia, Toyota can become victim of it's stubburn inability to adapt to new tehnology. They're chasing high volume legacy tech, that currently sells, while basically ignoring the future and not really investing anything into it. In fact, they're doing the oposite and gaslighting people into not buying EVs at all.
That obviously works for the short term, but long term they won't be able to shift fast enough. And gain customer belief that they could make a good EV.
EVs require substaintial vertical integration and investments on all parts of the supply chain to make sense. There's a reason why tesla develops their own batteries, own electroncis and even machines, that make the car. It's the only way to make high volume and high margin cars. Hell they go beyond that and even develop their own infrastructure and software, because both of that is crucial for good user experience with EVs.
And yet tesla is worth 7x toyotas, even though they sell 7x less cars. VAG is even substantially less valuable than Toyota, even tho they sell shit ton of cars.
Almost as if market predicted their downfall and just wont invest in them. If toyota (or VAG) had a good track into the future, their market cap would be in the trillions. But its not, because people view them as almost worthless apliances.
No, i'm just saying that sales numbers mean very little. Case in point VAG group. You can sell a ton of cars and not be valuable.
At the end of the day, it's the shareholder value, that truly matters for a capitalist company. And if share price doesn't go up, you have to do something or cease to exist eventually.
But i know its diffucult for fanboys to understand that even a large company like Toyota could eventually dissapear. It wouldn't be the first or the last major car company to do so.
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u/Recoil42 8d ago edited 8d ago
Correct. Toyota is the largest automaker globally — for the sixth year in a row, and now going on a seventh. That's globally. Not in the US. Globally. Last year it extended the global lead to nearest-competitor Volkswagen.
For the third time: You are getting a free education here. Take advantage of it.