Toyota has received 12,000 Indian orders for its new Etios sedan.
Order books opened on 1 December for a car initially pegged at an annual sales target of 70,000 units.
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“The number of orders is far bigger than I personally expected,” the car’s chief engineer, Yoshinori Noritake, told Reuters in Tokyo. “We don’t even have the car in our showrooms yet,” he said.
Toyota is targeting an almost doubling of its sales in India next year to 145,000 units, with the Etios accounting for about half of that. Etios sedan production begins on 20 December at the automaker’s factory near Bangalore with hatchbacks following early in 2011.
Toyota will import the engines and transmissions for the Etios until local engine production starts in autumn 2012 and transmission production in early 2013. Toyota plans to eventually export the model to other emerging markets, Reuters noted.
Noritake, who told the news agency he had travelled to India 40-50 times since becoming the car’s chief engineer in 2006, said Toyota had no plans to launch a car in the lower segments but instead hoped to build brand loyalty with the Etios to attract consumers to higher end models such as the Corolla.
Toyota sold 55,000 vehicles in India last year, giving it a market share of 2.4%.
