Toyota's 2016 Sales Genius - Shifting Focus To Crossovers and Compact Trucks

Why is Toyota the leading retail automaker in terms of sales this year? The right stuff is why. Although Toyota has always been strong in compact and mid-size sedans, the historically largest car segments, the company knows that sedans have jumped the shark. To stay relevant, Toyota has shifted its focus, production capacity, and consumer marketing focus to the vehicles those consumers want – crossovers and medium-duty trucks.

Toyota is not strong in one area; it is strong in all segments that consumers (families and individuals) are buying more vehicles in. These include the most import segment of all, compact crossovers. Toyota leads in sales in this segment, which GM says is now the largest non-truck automotive segment in the U.S. market. Toyota’s RAV4 sales of about 106,000 units through the end of April lead the Honda CR-V (100K) and the Nissan Rogue (92K) by a nose. Almost every automaker has a strong product for this market, but Toyota has two. It was the RAV4 Hybrid that put Toyota ahead. Without the added Hybrid sales Toyota would be slightly behind the Honda CR-V. No other automaker has a hybrid compact crossover in this segment.

Toyota’s 2016 Highlander is also a strong seller. It beats out the Honda and Nissan 3-row crossovers and few automakers have sales even close in this key family segment. However, Toyota’s most impressive trick was seeing that the mid-size pickup truck market was about to take off.
- Read Details On Mid-Size Pickups Here
Its Tacoma is selling at nearly double the rate of other brand’s pickups in this size and Ford, and Ram were left without anything to even offer in this newly hot market segment.

Toyotas Corolla and Camry remain favorites, but sedan popularity is waning. Toyota’s vision to see beyond today's big sellers has put it in position to remain the number one brand for families and individuals in the U.S.