Despite a slight 0.1% dip in year-on-year sales, Toyota (for the third straight year) is still the world’s number one. The Japanese automaker sold the most vehicles after tallying 10,483,024 million in global sales from January to December 2022. It includes sales of its subsidiaries Daihatsu and Hino. More than 8.5 million units accounted for sales outside Japan.

Total sales of Toyota and Lexus vehicles totaled 9,566,961 units globally with a 0.5% decline attributed to supply chain issues and pandemic production stoppages.

Volkswagen, the leader in automotive sales worldwide in 2016 and 2017, trails Toyota and is behind by more than two million units after dropping by 9% in year-on-year sales. The German automaker and its subsidiaries, including Škoda, Seat, Cupra, Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, and Porsche, could only deliver 8,262,800 units.

A chunk of Toyota’s sales came from China and Southeast Asia, where their SUV models doubled their growth, specifically in Indonesia and Thailand.

Toyota pulled off another successful year amid supply chain shortages caused by the lack of semiconductors and microchips as production continues to be severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even as the Japanese automaker tops the world market in auto sales, it lagged behind General Motors (GM) in the United States, thus giving up the sales crown it took in 2021. GM had a come-from-behind win after posting a 41% increase in Q4 of 2022 to sell 2,274,088 units in 2022 compared to Toyota's 2,108,458 units.

Toyota may be on track to increase its sales further, as the company seems to be getting on top of the parts supply problems that forced them to suspend production operations last year. 

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