• MSNBC, Detroit Free Press, Bloomberg News, Thursday, January 22, 2009 10:45 AM

Does the above headline seem like déjà vu all over again, and again, and again to you? Seems like I've been typing it for a year now, based on projections, but I'm dutifully including it for the record.

The Detroit Free Press reports that GM execs are shrugging off the news. "I don't think being No. 1 in global sales means much at all to the average consumer. I think it's an internal benchmark of our industry," says Mike DiGiovanni, GM's executive director of global market and industry analysis.

Toyota itself wasn't exactly ecstatic about the news. It announced earlier in the week that global sales dipped 4% compared with a year earlier. "I think, unfortunately, that we may be the winner of whose sales declined the least last year," says Don Esmond, svp of Toyota's U.S. division. He also points out that "share doesn't pay the bills." Talk about managing expectations.

Bloomberg reports, meanwhile, that Toyota's incoming president, Akio Toyoda, will replace the company's four evps and "many" of the 19 senior managing directors when he succeeds Katsuaki Watanabe in June. He also will focus on customers and spending as much time as possible with the company's production and sales, according to the story .

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