Toyota wins global sales race

Toyota was the biggest carmaker in the world for the third straight year in 2014, dominating a global market of almost 83 million new vehicles.

It sold 10.23 million cars and trucks around the world to see off a surging Volkswagen AG, which fell tantalizingly close to the top spot with 10.14 million vehicles despite four percent growth.

Formerly a fixture in the number one slot, General Motors sold 9.92 million cars and trucks across its various brands to earn third place in 2014.

It's the second major win in a few days for Toyota, which also claimed a runaway win in a Thomson Reuters IP & Science survey of global patent applications this week. Toyota filed around 7000 patents in the last three years, beating out German technology supplier Robert Bosch on 6000 and fast-climbing Hyundai on around 4500.

Yet Toyota might not hold on to its hard-won sales premiership for long, predicting a one percent decline in sales in 2015, which would leave it with 10.15 million deliveries.

Toyota's sales volume came from its self-branded cars, plus Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino, and is heavily focused on North America, where 23 percent of its production is sold.

It's at its weakest in China, where it sold only 1.1 million cars in 2014, compared to around 3.5 million for both Volkswagen and GM.

With analyst Scotiabank expecting the Chinese car market to grow seven percent in 2015, that could leave Toyota struggling to keep pace with its German foe.

Toyota took the crown from GM, which had held it in seeming perpetuity, in 2008 before losing it as its supply chain took a beating after Japan's tsunami and nuclear crises in 2011. It regained the title from GM in 2012 and has yet to relinquish it.

It is, though, Volkswagen's stated aim to become the world's biggest car maker and it has seen growth in all of its brands, which include Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Seat, Skoda, Volkswagen, the motorbike maker Ducati and the heavy haulage specialists, MAN and Scania.

General Motors counters that with Buick, Cadillac, Corvette, Chevrolet, Opel, Vauxhall, GMC and Holden, but lacks a heavy truck maker.

The fight for global honours went down to the wire in the premium sector, too, with BMW getting to the line in first place with 1.81 million cars. Its growth of 9.5 percent seemed solid-verging-on-brilliant enough until Audi posted 11 percent growth to 1.79 million cars and Mercedes-Benz jumped 13 percent to 1.65 million cars. It's a three-way dogfight that looks set to intensify in 2015.

Jaguar Land Rover posted nine percent growth, to 402,078 cars and SUVs in 2014, while Porsche screamed up 17 percent on the back of the Macan to reach 189,849 cars.