2014 Toyota sales jump 2.8% worldwide
Toyota Motor Corp. said global sales climbed 2.8 percent in the first nine months of this year as the carmaker battles Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co. for leadership.
Worldwide deliveries for Toyota, including its Hino Motors Ltd. and Daihatsu Motor Co. units, climbed to 7.6 million vehicles through September, spokesman Dion Corbett said. Volkswagen reported a 5.3 percent gain in sales to 7.4 million vehicles, excluding results for its two heavy-truck units. Detroit-based GM is third with 7.37 million sales.
The tight race between global giants is playing out as automakers, their customers and regulators contend with mounting recalls and rising scrutiny over the safety of vehicles. The industrywide struggle with defective cars poses risk to both Toyota and Volkswagen, which are benefiting from increasing demand in the China and U.S. markets.
"It's a fantastic race, with their strengths coming in different parts of the world," said James Chao, a Shanghai-based director at IHS Automotive. "You see the U.S. coming back quite strongly for Toyota, and then you see the great engine of growth for Volkswagen being China, which is continuing to perform."
The industry is selling record numbers of vehicles globally as crises involving auto safety swirl. Air bags made by Takata Corp. are linked to at least four deaths and more than 30 injuries in the U.S. after the safety devices deployed with too much force, spraying metal shrapnel at occupants. U.S. authorities have begun an investigation, and almost 8 million cars made by 10 automakers have been recalled to fix the hazard.
GM sales rose 2 percent to 7.37 million vehicles during the year's first nine months, even as the company faces death claims from faulty ignition switches. While sales fell in Europe and South America, the company boosted third-quarter deliveries by 14 percent in China and 9.5 percent in North America.
Toyota deliveries in the U.S. market increased 5.7 percent through September, paced by a 26 percent surge in sales of its RAV4 sport utility vehicle.
-- Bloomberg News
Dutch startup gets $3.8M investment
AMSTERDAM -- A Dutch startup that sells news on a per-article basis has landed a $3.8 million investment from The New York Times and the German publishing house Axel Springer SE.
Blendle founder Alexander Klopping said Monday his company will use the money to fund an international rollout.
Blendle's strategy is to make it easy for users to pay small amounts -- as little as a dime per story. It then adds a social networking element, as users can follow each other and recommend stories.
The service enjoyed early success in the Netherlands as almost all major newspapers and magazines offer content through the site.
The Economist had been the most prominent international news organization to use Blendle, but Klopping said The New York Times and Axel Springer's properties will now follow suit.
-- The Associated Press
Amazon workers strike at 5 German sites
Amazon.com Inc. workers in Germany went on strike Monday at five logistics centers as the Ver.di union pushes the U.S. online retailer to join collective bargaining agreements.
"Amazon owes its employees such an agreement," Stefanie Nutzenberger, a Ver.di board member, said in an emailed statement. Doing so would be "an effective tool to limit work pressures and help mitigate the considerable impacts on shift workers' health from working nights and weekends."
The strike, which will last for three days, will affect logistics centers in Bad Hersfeld, Leipzig, Graben, Werne and Rheinberg, according to the union. Amazon didn't immediately return a call and email requesting comment on the strike and its effect on its operations.
Workers in Germany, the retailer's biggest market outside the U.S., have held walkouts in the last 1 1/2 years demanding that the Seattle-based company recognize industrywide labor agreements. The dispute highlights the conflict between Amazon's business approach -- built on cost flexibility -- and a labor model in Germany that dates from the middle of the 19th century. The company has about 15,000 German logistics workers, including those on temporary contracts, according to the union.
The union has said Amazon's method of dealing with workers individually or in small groups has led to many employees being on short-term contracts, people not getting sufficient breaks and higher sick rates. It also has said employees should be classified as retail rather than logistics workers to justify higher wages. The current strike follows a walk out last month that also hit a number a logistics centers, with about 2,000 workers taking part, the union said.
Amazon has said that it pays logistics workers at the upper end of what's usual in the sector and that employees wouldn't benefit from collective wage agreements.
-- Bloomberg News