Toyota Motor Corp said yesterday that it will stop all of its North American factories for two full days next month.
At the same time, Nissan Motor Co. provided a dismal prediction of the auto industry's near-term future to the media. Predictions that, if they hold true, could affect the satellite radio industry more than previously expected.
Toyota, the world's biggest automaker, has already canceled all U.S. production of its light trucks for three months this summer. Production is to be further reduced in 2009 at three U.S. assembly plants, according to a spokesperson.
XM installs in Toyota vehicles was expected to reach one-million vehicles annually by 2010. There's no word whether this was a contractual obligation, or an estimate based on predicted production levels.
Toyota also did not disclose how many produced vehicles would be lost as a result of the two-day stoppage on December 22nd and 23rd (which is in addition to a scheduled break for Christmas and New Year).
Meanwhile...
Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan and Renault SA, warned of his own bleak view of the auto industry's prospects in Washington with a reminder that Nissan was expecting virtually no profit in the October-March second half.
"We have to recognize 2009 will be one of the most challenging years for our industry and the whole economy in the last 50 years," Ghosn told the Wall Street Journal in an interview.
Ghosn told CNBC that U.S. industry-wide sales falling to 11-11.5 million vehicles next year was a "realistic" assessment. For comparison's sake, in 2007 auto sales totaled 16.15 million.
So what does that mean for the satellite radio industry? I think Sirius XM Radio Inc. CEO Mel Karmazin said it best during the Q3 earnings call:
"Unfortunately we do not have a whole lot of control over what cars are getting sold," said Karmazin to investors. "We do our best. We help our car partners any way we can, but we are not the ones that are selling cars.
"So we are at the mercy of what happens."
[via Reuters]










