The Hindu Business Line : Toyota Kirloskar open to multiple plant locations

TOYOTA Kirloskar Motor Pvt Ltd is open to the idea of having plants in more than one location in the country. The company's reasoning is that plants in multiple locations help create jobs, which means more economic growth. This, in turn, may result in higher car sales, according to Mr Atsushi Toyoshima, Managing Director of Toyota Kirloskar.

In an informal chat with newspersons, he was answering a question on why the company would look at another location for a car plant when it had used up only a quarter of the land available with it near Bangalore.

Replying that the company was indeed studying various options - both for introducing new models and for an additional plant at a different location - Mr Toyoshima said that the company's first option would be Karnataka.

He drew attention to Toyota's operations in the US, where it had five vehicle assembly plants.

He said that the company would shortly complete its study on introducing new models and on the location where they would be manufactured.

The company's plant at Bidadi has a capacity of 60,000 units, which was being fully used.

Toyota Kirloskar, which is in its sixth year of manufacturing, has five per cent share of the passenger car market which it plans to increase to 10 per cent in the 10th year and 15 per cent by the 15th year of operations.

To achieve 10 per cent share, the company would require at least two more models, Mr Toyoshima had told a news conference earlier.

He expects the passenger car market to grow 15 per cent annually, which means that the company would require a capacity of 600,000 units by 2015 if it were to achieve its objective of 15 per cent market share.

Mr Toyoshima said that only 0.1 per cent of India's population buys cars now; there is a huge population that could be tapped.

For this, anybody manufacturing a car in the Maruti 800 level (in terms of price) had a good chance of boosting sales, he said. The Corolla alone could not bring in the additional numbers that the company anticipated. For this, the company would require a small car, he added.

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