Toyota's global sales and production fell for the second month in a row

Toyota reported that the company's global sales and vehicle production fell for the second month in a row in August. The decline in China, the US and the Middle East continued after negative results in the previous month. Reuters writes about this.

The world's largest automaker saw global sales fall 6.4 percent from the same period last year to 790,743 vehicles. Production fell 5.9 percent to 700,860 vehicles.

In China, sales fell 22.8 percent, their seventh straight monthly decline. The reason was the rise in gasoline prices, which weakened the demand for hybrids and cars with traditional internal combustion engines.

In Toyota's largest market, the United States, sales fell by 4.4 percent, and in the Middle East by 37.5. This outpaced growth of 9.1 percent in Japan itself.

Car production decreased due to a fall of 11.3 percent in China and 6.6 percent in America. In Japan, production fell 1.7 percent, partly due to plant shutdowns following the earthquake on the southern island of Kyushu.