Toyota President Predicts Sales Growth in March

Though it seems that Toyota Motor Corp’s image problems refuse to go away, people still believe in its recovery. According to autonews.com, the company’s president stated that he believes sales in the North American market could recover in March, after a serious drop last month.

"I think it's possible” for sales to recover, Akio Toyoda told reporters after a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. "We are taking steps simultaneously for repairs and a sales recovery. The local staff are working hard at this," he said.

Toyota used to be the world’s largest car manufacturer, until the massive recalls that involved 8.5 million vehicles worldwide. The major problem was that the recalls were safety related and that several people got injured or killed in accidents due to accelerator or breaking problems. This being said, you can imagine how such a recall affected the company’s image.

As people began to lose faith in Toyota’s products, sales started to drop. While most of the automotive players present in the US, and especially the domestic ones, are posting increased sales for the past two months, the Japanese from Toyota felt the heat caused by the massive recall.

The automaker posted a February sales drop of 8.7 percent as compared to the same month of 2009. Ironically, the Prius seemed unaffected by the recall, as it managed to register a 10.2 percent increase as compared to 2009, reaching 7,968 units sold. It seems that despite the problems, Americans still want to stay green and keep their fuel consumption down.