Small cars across the globe equal big sales for U.S. automakers. The Ford Focus was announced as the clear-cut winner, as the top seller for global sales, easily taking the top spot against the second place finisher the Toyota Corolla. Chevrolet’s Cruze cracked the top 10 in global sales ahead of Honda’s famed Civic.
Recently released data shows that registrations on a global basis for the Ford Focus increased in 2012 by 16%. Helping in those increases was a new plant opened in 2012 in China that allowed the U.S. automaker to manufacture more cars for the world’s largest car market.
An executive with Ford said that since last March at the launch in China, sales have steadily grown with the new model now ranked as China’s No. 1 passenger car in sales for 2012 for just the first time.
Globally more than 81 million autos were sold during 2012, which was a new record for global sales. In 2013, that record is expected to be eclipsed.
The top five cars for global sales were the Focus (1,020,410), Corolla (872,774), F-series pickups (785,630), Zhiguang (768,870) and the Toyota Camry (729,793).
The Zhiguang is manufactured by Wuling, a Chinese automaker, in a joint venture with GM.
