Toyota Motor’s Taiwanese vehicle assembly subsidiary, Kuozui Motors Ltd, is increasingly upbeat about its prospects as the domestic market continues to rebound from a prolonged period of stagnation in the second half of the 1990s. The company is preparing to expand capacity at its two plants in the country when it introduces new models over the next year.

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Taiwan’s domestic vehicle market – excluding imports – rose to 422,232 units in 2004, up from 361,878 units in 2003 and 340,866 in 2002. There is little sign so far that this trend will reverse any time soon, despite rising interest rates.


Toyota’s domestic sales have risen sharply in the last two years to 130,053 units, from 105,731 in 2003 and 91,126 in 2002. Overall volumes have been boosted by the introduction of the Wish to the line-up in 2004, which replaced the Tercel and is now the company’s top-selling model. But all its established models have done well – particularly the Corolla Altis which saw production volumes rise to 40,272 units, from 35,675 a year earlier. Kuozui Motor’s domestic sales target for 2005 has been set at 140,000 units.


























































Toyota vehicle production by model, 2003-05

2003
2004

1-3 2005
 Camry
27,869
30,672
6,188
 Corolla
35,675
40,272
7,863
 Wish
0

10,972
8,036
 Vios
26,197
29,520
6,514
 Hiace
1,302
1,590
418
 Zace
11,485
14,053
3,020
 Tercel
789
0

0
 Trucks and buses
226
2,974
843
 Total
103,543
130,053
32,882

Source: TTVMA

Kuozui Motor’s president, Yokohama Kanagawa, told reporters that his company has a budget of NT$10bn (US$318m) to invest in capacity expansion over the medium term. The programme will start with the upgrade of its Chungli plant, which makes the Camry, Corolla Altis and Wish models, this year. The plant’s 85,000-unit annual production capacity is currently fully utilized, but additional equipment will be installed this year to raise this to 100,000 units. A redesigned Camry model is scheduled to be introduced in mid-2006.


Kuozui’s Kuanying plant, which makes the Vios passenger car and commercial vehicles, will also get a capacity upgrade when the Vitz subcompact car is added to the line-up in 2006. The Corolla Altis will also get a facelift in 2007.

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Given the current momentum in the market and its own strong new model programme, KuoZui Motors expects it will need to increase capacity to 180,000 units by 2008. There is still no word on producing the replacement for the Zace, fuelling speculation that this may be imported as a CBU product from South-East Asia.


Tony Pugliese