Toyota Motor is considering again reducing its 2009 sales target.
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This time the goalpost would be under 8.5m units, down over 1m units from the previously announced 9.7m, sources told Kyodo News on Thursday.
This would mean 2009 sales, including Daihatsu cars and Hino trucks, would will dip to the lowest point since 2005 when the group sold 8.12m units.
Toyota’s global sales for 2008 are now seen falling to around 9m units from 9.37m in 2007, led by the United States downturn where sales dropped almost 34% last month.
Toyota earlier this month announced production cuts in North America and Japan and said it would axe about 3,000 temporary workers in Japan.
Yesterday, a spokesman in Japan said some production in Indiana and Kentucky would be stopped for up to nine days and in Canada – where a plant making RAV4 SUVs has just opened – for up to 10 days early in 2009.
Production of Tacoma trucks and Corolla cars at the NUMMI JV with General Motors in Fremont, California, would also stop for 10 days, the spokesman said.
Toyota’s original forecast for 2009, announced in August 2007, was 10.4m units but this was dropped to 9.7m units last August.
Had the original goal been reached, Toyota would have been the first automaker to sell 10m units in a year.
