Toyota sells 10.5 million vehicles to beat Volkswagen as world's top-selling automaker

Toyota Motor Corp sold 10.5 million vehicles, retaining its lead over German rival Volkswagen for the third year to be the world's top-selling automaker in 2022,

The Japanese carmaker and its subsidiaries sold nearly the same number of vehicles last year as in 2021 amid chip shortage and COVID-related supply chain disruption.

The Volkswagen Group, which sold 8.3 million units last year, a seven percent annual drop, was the global top-seller until 2020 when it was overtaken by Toyota.

Toyota noted that solid demand centered around Asia last year.

According to Mio Kato, an analyst at Lightstream Research who publishes Smartkarma, it will still be difficult for Volkswagen or General Motors to surpass Toyota In terms of the actual volumes because both are under more pressure in China with their internal combustion engine business.

He added that electric-only carmakers like China's BYD will one day pose "a genuine threat" to Toyota because they have strong battery technology and "more experience and better branding" with EVs.

However, electric-only carmakers are still too small to compete with legacy carmakers for several years at least.