World
car makers eye year ahead with caution
By
Peter
Capella
AFP
GENEVA
Petroleumworld.com
02 29 06
The auto industry adopted a cautious outlook at the opening of
the annual Geneva motor show Tuesday as it grappled with high
costs and fickle buyers who are still anxiously keeping an eye
on petrol prices.
While most manufacturers were holding out for a slight improvement
in their sales, there was little mention of profits, while French
carmaker Renault gave a forthright prediction of mediocre sales
in 2006.
Despite being crippled by an 8.6-billion-dollar (7.3-billion-euro)
loss in 2005, General Motors, narrowly the world's biggest automaker,
said it had seen signs of an improvement in its top markets in
the United States and Europe.
GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said US sales were "relatively
good" in January and February, without resorting to the kind
of heavy discounting that had propped up car sales in the United
States in recent years.
"We're looking for a slight increase," Lutz said of
Europe, while warning that competition from Asia was still an
issue while GM was implementing massive layoffs announced in the
United States and Europe.
"As long as automobiles are substantially more expensive
to produce in Europe or in the US than they are in China, Korea
or Mexico, we have a cost problem. There's no walking away from
it," he told journalists.
Toyota, the profitable pretender to GM's throne, said it was aiming
to break through the one-million-car barrier in Europe for the
first time in 2006, while its European plants were working at
full capacity to match demand.
Fuelled by its new range of small cars and an emphasis on fuel
economy, the Japanese carmaker is targeting sales growth of 8.0
percent in the region against 5.2 percent last year, when it had
outperformed the market.
"We hope that 2006 will be a new year of record sales in
Europe, with one million Toyotas sold and 45,000 Lexus, against
936,000 Toyotas and 28,000 Lexus in 2005," said Toyota Europe
vice president Takis Athanasopoulos.
The world number two is also cushioning high raw material prices
through savings in administrative and transport costs, said Toyota
Europe chief operating officer Thierry Dombreval.
But Dombreval was optimistic about the outlook for steel after
shortages stoked prices last year, partly due to the huge demand
form Chinese industry.
"Steel prices have not exploded, there is no shortage of
iron ore and steel production capacity is being increased,"
he explained.
Meanwhile, arch-rival Nissan was predicting an improvement in
Europe, where lacklustre economic prospects and high oil prices
have depressed car markets in recent years.
Nissan executive vice president Carlos Tavares said the Japanese
company was aiming at "step by step" growth by targeting
specific areas of the market rather than simply increasing volume.
"Competition is raging everywhere, the capacity to bring
good products to the consumer is the best antidote to price wars,"
Tavares said, as the company launched its new "Note"
small to medium-sized car aimed at sporty, young families.
That left French carmaker Renault -- Nissan's ally -- to announce
the bad news about its key European market.
"In 2006, the sales results for Renault in Europe will be
really quite bad," said Patrick Blain, sales director for
the Renault brand.
"Quite frankly we don't see a big boom in Europe, but more
clouds. The market could even go down a little," Blain said.
Car sales in 2005 fell by 0.7 percent to 15.22 million, and Renault
lost its number one slot to German rival Volkswagen.
AFP
02 28 06
Copyright
© 2006 AFP. All rights reserved
Send
this story to a friend
Your
feedback is important to us!
We invite all our readers to share with us
their views and comments about this article.
Write
to editor@petroleumworld.com
Any
question or suggestions, please write to:
editor@petroleumworld.com
Best
Viewed with IE
5.01+
Windows
NT 4.0, '95, '98 and ME +/ 800x600 pixels
|
|
