Japanese car manufacturer, Toyota Motor Corp recently announced it would roll out 8-new compact car models tailored for emerging markets by 2015 in an attempt to catch up to front-runners such as Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co. in terms of sales. Toyota, which lost the crown as the world’s top automaker last year, is re-aligning its strategies related to the emerging markets like India, China, Russia and Brazil.
Now the company has realised that dependence on its homeland market and other developed markets will do no good to the car maker, Toyota is fast targeting the emerging markets by launching 8-new compact cars. In India, Toyota plans introduce 6-new global small cars by 2015 which will add to its sales. All this upcoming compact cars will be priced under 10 lakhs and will have 100% localization.
As per the global product strategy of Toyota, it has planned a total of 8-new compact cars two of which are Etios series cars which are already a great success in India and South Africa. But don’t expect these small cars to be priced below 6 lakh rupees (in price positioning) because the company believes that anything lower should be handled by Daihatsu which has expertise in making cheap cars.
Talking about India, Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) has learnt that it is the small car that will give it a lead as the market is prominently governed by hatchbacks and all the more especially when India still lacks a feasible small car perhaps in diesel when petrol prices are heading to their mighty figure of Rs 100 per litre. While other car makers too, such as Nissan and Hyundai are said to be in the process of bringing in a low cost car in India and other emerging markets.
Also see – Toyota plans to launch 2 new hatches & a compact SUV
