India will be among the top markets in mind for Japanese carmaker Toyota, which hopes to develop and roll out at least eight small cars in emerging markets by 2015. This is part of a strategy to de-risk its business from the slowdown in the developed markets.
While the first two — the Etios and Liva hatch — have already been launched in India, the other six are under development at its home base in Japan.
“We will launch more small cars … we have to study which of these vehicles is suitable for India,” Mr Hiroshi Nakagawa, Toyota Kirloskar Motor's Managing Director said.
“Going forward our focus is very much in the emerging countries and India is a very important market,” he added.
Last Friday in Tokyo, the world's second largest carmaker unveiled a plan to generate half of its sales from the emerging markets such as India, China, Russia and South-east Asia by 2015 (around 40 per cent currently comes from these markets). The target is to sell a million units of the eight small cars by the same period.
“For Toyota and all major carmakers today, the main stage is developed countries like Japan, US and Europe. These matured markets are not expected to post good growth, sometimes stable and sometimes decline,” he said.
Mr Nakagawa also laid to rest recent rumours that Toyota would launch its sub-brand Daihatsu for new models positioned bellow Etios in terms of price. However, its Lexus luxury brand is scheduled to roll out in India early next year.
Recently, Nissan also announced plans to revive its Datsun brand for lower priced cars in the emerging markets. Such a move would avoid brand dilution of the parent brand, which could then focus on more premium products.
Volkswagen also reportedly unveiled plans to launch a low-cost brand for emerging markets, based on its old small car platforms.
CAPACITY EXPANSION
Toyota Kirloskar is expanding capacity at its two plants near Bangalore by one lakh units, from the current 2.1 lakh units a year. The fresh capacity would come in by January-March, 2013.
A new petrol engine plant is also expected to come on-stream by September, though diesel engines which account for 75 per cent of Etios and nearly all of the Innova demand, will still be imported.