The Hindu Business Line : Toyota aims to garner 10% share by 2010

TOYOTA Kirloskar Motor Pvt Ltd, manufacturer of Qualis, Corolla and Camry vehicles, is looking towards cornering a 10 per cent market share in the total passenger car market by 2010 as against the current market share of 4 per cent.

"Our goal is to become a leading player in the Indian automobile market," Mr Tetsuya Umizawa, Director - Purchase Division, said pointing out that the company was already a market leader in the country in the multi-utility vehicle segment.

Toyota Kirloskar, which launched Toyota Qualis in India in January 2000, has rolled out its 1,00,000th domestically produced vehicle from its production facility at Bidadi recently. To mark the occasion, the company had launched the special limited edition Qualis with enhanced features. The company had also chalked out a month-long celebration plan for its existing and prospective customers nationally. The Rs 900-crore company is a joint venture between Toyota Motor Corporation and the Kirloskar group.

Mr Umizawa told newspersons here on Sunday that the company would post an operating profit this year and was likely to wipe out its accumulated losses and achieve break-even by 2006 if the current growth of its sales continued. The Qualis sales during January-September this year stood at 22,464 units and commanded a 33 per cent market share in the MUV segment. The company was expected to achieve its target of selling 34,000 vehicles in the current fiscal and increase its market share to 40 per cent.

Mr Sailesh Shetty, Manager, Sales Department and Marketing Division, said that Andhra Pradesh was an important market for the company with sales of 1,674 vehicles during January-September this year as against sales of 1,479 vehicles in the whole of last year. It was targeted to sell 2,300 vehicles in the State registering a growth of 48 per cent over the previous year and achieve a market share of 51 per cent in the MUV segment in the current fiscal.

He said that all the 1,000 limited edition vehicles that the company proposed to be produced have already been sold out. The limited model would sport a new grill, side stripes and come in a single silver body colour.

So far, he said, Qualis accounted for 95 per cent of the vehicles sold by the company though Toyota Corolla, launched in February 2003, was the largest selling vehicle in the country in the C plus segment clocking sales of 6,055 vehicles during the first 9 months of this year. The Corolla had garnered a 46 per cent market share in the C plus segment. On the other hand, only 931 units of Camry, Toyota's three-box sedan that entered into the Indian market in October 2002, have been sold since its launch.

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Toyota aims to garner 10% share by 2010