On news that General Motor's sales were down 10.8 percent for 2008, the American automaker sees the end of its 77-year reign as the largest carmaker in the world, surpassed by its closest rival Toyota Motor Corp.

In 2008 General Motors sold 8.36 million vehicles; 616,000 fewer than Toyota's year end total of 8.97 million. The GM website now describes the company as "the annual global industry sales leader for 77 years."

On Monday, January 19, the evening before the announcement of the sales figures, Fritz Henderson, GM President, said, at the Automotive News World Congress that the title of largest carmaker wasn't "terribly important," citing the pressing need to return the company to profitability after the need for $4 billion in federal loans.

GM recorded a sales drop of 21.1 percent in North America and 6.5 percent in Europe. (The decline in the United States alone was 22.7 percent.) A gain of 3.2 percent was recorded in the Latin America, Africa, Middle East region and the Asia-Pacific territory picked up 2.7 percent.

In the fourth quarter of the year, however, with car sales plummeting around the world, GM's sales volume lost a staggering 26.2 percent, leading the company to beg the federal government for a bailout package to stave off imminent collapse.