Toyota expects sales in India to rise by around 20% this year, but it has not yet decided if it will launch a small car to compete with the high volume Maruti models, to help boost sales in the medium term, according to Reuters.
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Vikram Kirloskar, vice chairman at Toyota’s car and car parts joint ventures in India, told Reuters in an interview that Toyota does not have small cars suitable for the Indian market. He said that Toyota is studying market entry but that no concrete decision has yet been made, because finding a balance between cost and quality is problematic.
Last year Toyota sold 41,000 vehicles in India, giving it a 2.8% market share. Sales in 2005 declined 15% from a year earlier, attributed to a changeover from the old to the new Innova model produced at the Toyota Kirloskar plant.
This year Toyota Kirloskar executives said they were hoping for sales of around 55,000 units (financial year to March 2007). That would be up 17-19% on the previous financial year when Toyota sold 47,000 cars.
Toyota’s target is to capture 10% to of the market by 2010, equivalent to sales of over 200,000 units a year.
Recent local press reports have suggested that Toyota is developing a low cost car in the $6,000 to $8,000 price bracket, and that the car is under development in Japan with Daihatsu. However the Reuters interview has not confirmed this.
To date Toyota’s strategy in India has been to focus on the MPV segment. The company’s biggest-selling model has been the Qualis MPV, which was launched in 2000 and quickly took share from multi-utility vehicles (MUVs) offered by Tata and Mahindra & Mahindra.
The Qualis is today used predominantly as a taxi and has been replaced by the Innova, which is based on Toyota’s international multi-purpose vehicle (IMV) platform that Toyota has launched across Asia. The Innova was launched in March 2005 and Toyota sold 32,000 units during the year. Toyota is planning to sell 40,000 Innovas in India in 2006.
Toyota also sells the Corolla, Camry and Landcruiser Prado in India.
