Toyota for the people

The concern is conquering emerging markets

Leading Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. is going to build a new plant in India. By 2010, the world's most promising automaker will begin producing inexpensive small cars here. The plant will be built in southern India next to Toyota's first plant near Bangalore. The volume of investment in the construction of the plant will be from 300 to 400 million dollars, Nikkei reports. And at the end of this year, the assembly line of the plant that Toyota is building near St. Petersburg will start operating.

Toyota officials did not refute the Japanese Nikkei report, but noted that they themselves were not yet disclosing the details of their plans.

According to the newspaper, the company started expanding production in India as part of a program to strengthen its presence in the markets of developing countries. Currently, Toyota's share of the local market is only 4% of the total. The capacity of the new conveyor will allow the company to produce up to 100 thousand cars per year, which will double its share. According to experts, by 2010 in India the demand for cars will grow to 2 million cars per year. Considering the low standard of living, many companies are counting on setting up production of their own “people’s car” here. For example, two other Japanese corporations - Honda Motor Co. and Suzuki Motor Corp. have already announced their intention to expand their presence here.

Toyota announced the development of a new “budget model” a couple of weeks ago. Now this small car project is being finalized. It is assumed that this will be a small car with an engine capacity of 1 liter. Toyota called its “baby” Entry Family Car (a family car with a wide profile - Ed. ). The preliminary cost of such a car is 6.5 thousand dollars. Brazil, China and Russia may also become target regions for the sale of a mini-car. It is on them that experts rely as the main driver of the further development of the automobile industry.

In Russia, at the end of last year, Toyota took fourth place among foreign cars, increasing sales by 58%, to 95.7 thousand cars. Even in Russia, at the end of last year, more than 10 thousand cars of the “luxury” division of Toyota - Lexus were sold; sales of this brand almost doubled over the year.

Last year, Toyota announced its intention to build its own plant near St. Petersburg. And yesterday in St. Petersburg, deputy head of the Toyota Motors Manufacturing Russia representative office, Hiroshi Murata, announced the launch date of the enterprise: it will begin operating on December 24 of this year. According to ITAR-TASS, Mr. Murata said that the company is currently close to completing the construction of the building frame, and installation of equipment will begin in March. At the first stage, the plant's capacity will be 50 thousand cars per year, then it is planned to expand its capacity to 200 thousand cars per year. The company has not yet announced whether the “people’s car” will be produced in Russia. But there is a high probability that this will happen, because Russia was named as one of the target consumers of this product. However, as Japanese media reported back in January, the new Toyota car, designed specifically for emerging markets, will have its own specifics and distinctive “national” external features in each country where it will be sold.

Toyota previously announced its intention to increase production to 9.8 million vehicles in 2008. More than half of them will be assembled outside of Japan. If analysts' forecasts come true, by 2008 the company's foreign production volume will increase by 40% compared to 2005.

Denis UVAROV