Toyota July China sales grow 35% to 63,700 units

Toyota Motor Corp.'s sales in China rose 35% in July from a year earlier to 63,700 vehicles, marking the third consecutive month of double-digit vehicle sales growth, according to a company spokesman in Beijing Friday.

Toyota's sales for the first seven months of this year totaled 348,100 vehicles, up 5% from a year earlier, said spokesman Hitoshi Yokoyama.

Due to a sizable slide in sales earlier this year, Toyota had feared it might miss its 2009 goal of matching sales a year earlier.

But its executives now say the company is likely to be able to exceed last year's sales level of 585,000 vehicles by a relatively big margin.