Toyota and Suzuki will take their India partnership global by exporting cars jointly made here to Africa and other markets. The two companies made this known in a global statement issued on Friday.

As part of this effort, Toyota Kirloskar Motor will produce models developed by Suzuki for sale in India as well as Africa. For the domestic market, this will be done through their respective networks. In the case of overseas shipments, models developed by Suzuki, as well as those produced by Toyota, will head out to countries like Africa and other parts of the world. As in the case of the Indian distribution model, these will be sold in Toyota and Suzuki sales networks.

Tech support

The other big news on Friday was of Denso Corporation and Toyota providing Suzuki with technological support for a compact and efficient powertrain to be developed by the latter.

Clearly, the partnership has been on the fast-track since it was made public in early 2017 with a series of new initiatives being announced at regular intervals.

Friday’s news bulletin is particularly interesting since it is a follow up from the one made public a few weeks ago relating to the product swap for India. This will see Suzuki supply its top-selling Vitara Brezza and Baleno models to Toyota which, in turn, will reciprocate with its Corolla.

Now, with Toyota taking over part-production of Suzuki models at its Karnataka facility, it makes sense considering that barely 30 per cent of capacity is being used now. With the recently launched Yaris, this may step up a bit, but there will still be enough and more capacity to spare.

Suzuki plants, on the other hand, are gasping for space and this is where Toyota’s co-operation will be more than welcome.

At present, Suzuki is producing nearly 1.8 million units annually, which will be up to over two million early next year, when the second line at Gujarat is up and running.

Yet, this will not be enough for a company that is striving to maintain its 50 per cent market share for the next decade.

This will mean setting up another facility, perhaps in its traditional Gurgaon-Manesar belt, as well as turning to Toyota for help.

Key markets

Suzuki has already identified Africa and Latin America as key markets that will be serviced from India whose role will only grow stronger in the coming years. The fact that Toyota will now be part of this drive marks a new dimension to the partnership.

Additionally, it will be interesting to see how product swaps will lead to the creation of an all-new Suzuki or Toyota DNA with a freshly designed/engineered Corolla, Baleno or Vitara Brezza .

There could be more such models in the pipeline followed, perhaps, by joint product development and common platforms.

The Suzuki-Toyota partnership is here to stay going by the rapid unfolding of events.

This is quite uncharacteristic of Japanese companies which would rather take one thing at a time. It is anyone’s guess what the duo will announce in its next news instalment.

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