LAS VEGAS, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp. , which unseated Ford Motor Co. as the world's second-biggest automaker last year, expects to grab more market share in Ford's own backyard this year, a top executive said on Friday.
Some industry analysts have begun to predict a near-term loss in U.S. market share at Toyota, which they see as losing momentum and facing various headwinds after steady growth since the mid-1970s.
But Jim Press, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Toyota's U.S. subsidiary, said the automaker sees more growth in the United States in 2004.
He spoke on the sidelines of an auto industry conference sponsored by J.D. Power and Associates, a research firm whose forecasters are among those claiming that Toyota is losing steam and incapable of maintaining the significant growth it has seen in the U.S. market in past decades.
"I don't know what their forecasts are based on but I do know that the market is going to have to grow pretty fast to keep up with our growth," Press told Reuters.
"I'm not sure where it will wind up," he added, referring to Toyota's U.S. share by the end of this year. "But I do know we'll meet our sales targets, which would bring more share based on anticipated industry forecasts."
Press said Toyota sees U.S. industry-wide vehicle sales totaling about 17 million units this year, in line with other forecasts, and added that such a level would definitely boost Toyota's U.S. share.
"It would go up, it wouldn't go down. It's not going to go down," he said.
Toyota's share of the U.S. market rose by 0.8 of a percentage point to 11.2 percent in 2003, in a hypercompetitive market where every sliver of share is fought over fiercely.
Press said Toyota, whose market capitalization is bigger than the combined stock values of Detroit's traditional Big Three automakers, doesn't really pay much attention to market share.
But it has set a goal of seizing 15 percent of the global car market sometime in the next decade, from about 11 percent now, and that could put it ahead of General Motors Corp. as the world's biggest automaker.
It's propsects like that, perhaps, that prompted Press to offer a very upbeat assessment of the global auto industry in a keynote address to the J.D. Power conference.
"It's golden era that we face in this market, it's phenomenal," Press said.
He was referring, among other positive trends, to the fact that population growth is expected to boost U.S. car and light truck sales by 4 million units between now and 2010.