It's been a successful start to the year for Toyota, retaining its spot on top of the sales charts for the first quarter of the year. 

For the months of January to March, Toyota Motor Corp. announced that they sold a record 2.583 million vehicles. This put them in the driver’s seat for global sales ahead of their rivals General Motors and Volkswagen.

Compared to last year, Toyota’s first quarter sales increased by 6 per cent; while General Motors only rose 2 per cent, allowing Volkswagen to be right on their heels for second position, as they increased their sales by 6 per cent.

Not only did Toyota set a record for the first quarter of 2014, they also announced that in fiscal 2013 – they’re the first automaker to top 10 million vehicles sold. There doesn’t seem to be any time to rejoice, as Toyota’s has its sights set on continued success with a goal of 10.32 million vehicles sold for the 2014 calendar year.

General Motors used to be the top dog for many decades before losing the lead in 2008 to Toyota. They reclaimed the top honours briefly in 2011 after Toyota dealt with production shortages in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami. However more recently, General Motors has been facing a separate battle of recalls (2.6 million vehicles for ignition switch defects) that has cause for concern for holding on to that global second spot.

Toyota’s news comes at a good time after recently battling Ford for the top-selling car in the world with the Toyota Corolla just falling short of the Ford Focus. The Focus’ success can be attributed to its fanfare in China with an increase in sales by 50 per cent to total a whopping 403,219 units.

Toyota finished the 2013 calendar year just shy of 10 million units totalling 9.98 million, so Toyota will want to make a big splash for 2014.