Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. edged closer to taking the title of the world's top automaker by output after US rival General Motors reduced its production target for this year.
GM on Tuesday reduced its output forecast for North America for the third quarter of 2007 to 1.05 million vehicles, down 25,000 from its previous target, and also trimmed its projections for Asia.
The US auto giant now expects to produce 9.285 million vehicles globally this year, according to its latest forecasts.
Toyota has set a higher production target of 9.42 million vehicles for 2007 including two key affiliates, up from 9.02 million in 2006.
The Japanese giant, which is also neck-and-neck with GM in terms of sales in the current year, said last week it planned in 2009 to be the first company in the world to sell more than 10 million vehicles.
A pioneer of eco-friendly hybrids, Toyota has won an especially strong following in the United States, where sky-high prices at the pump have boosted demand for the Japanese firm's fuel efficient vehicles.
Toyota is well on track to overtake GM as the world number one this year, said Okasan Securities auto analyst Yasuaki Iwamoto.
"Next year it will continue to be number one," he said.
GM, which has been shutting several factories and slashing jobs by 2008, regained the rank as the world's best-selling automaker in the second quarter of 2007, but Toyota came out on top for the first half of the year as a whole.
Toyota has been careful not to gloat about its success in the United States, fearing a protectionist backlash of the type seen when Japanese automakers first seriously penetrated the market in the 1980s.
"Toyota is not aiming to be the world's number one or trying to reach the top. It simply has the goal to sell" vehicles, said Atsushi Kawai, auto analyst at Mizuho Investors Securities.
Toyota reported Tuesday a 2.8 percent fall in US sales in August from a year earlier, attributing the dip to the impact of the US housing slump.
Toyota sales also fell in US "because it didn't come out with new models like last year," said Kawai.
By contrast, GM's US sales rose 5.3 percent in August, lifted by strong demand for its new pickup trucks and crossover sport utilities.
