Toyota says its Corolla compact car was the world’s best-selling vehicle in 2012, not the Ford Focus, as the U.S. carmaker said yesterday citing R.L. Polk & Co.’s global new vehicle registration data for the full-year 2012.
Ford said it sold 1.02 million Focus vehicles last year topping the Toyota Corolla, which was attributed sales of 872,774 units. The Japanese carmaker’s was quick to contradict its rival.
“Toyota sold 1.16 million Corolla nameplate vehicles globally in 2012,” wrote Mike Michels, the carmaker’s U.S. vice president of communications, in an e-mailed statement, according to Bloomberg. “Corolla registrations attributed to Polk come up short by nearly 300,000 units. This discrepancy is glaring and we have requested clarification,” Michels added.
However, Polk spokeswoman Michelle Culver said it is unable to provide data on global sales by nameplate beyond what Ford has released. Meanwhile, Ford stands firm and reiterates the statement released yesterday.“The 1.02 million figure is a pure number that is verified by a third party. In this case, Polk,” said Erich Merkle, Ford’s U.S. sales analyst.
The obvious question here is where are the 300,000 Toyota Corollas not counted by Polk? The answer may be that the Japanese carmaker counts sales of the Corolla Axio and Corolla Altis (sold in Japan and South East Asia, respectively) as part of Corolla nameplate sales, while Polk didn’t include these models in its statistics.
Polk’s 2012 global new vehicle registration data lists the Toyota Corolla in second place behind the Ford Focus and ahead of the Ford F-Series as the world’s best-selling nameplates last year.
By Dan Mihalascu
PHOTO GALLERY
