Toyota Kirloskar Motor Private Limited (TKMPL), the Indo – Japanese Joint Venture (JV) partnership between the Kirloskar Group and Toyota Motor Corporation, recorded a 23 per cent drop in its total sales in the domestic passenger car market in January 2013. The company sold just 13,329 vehicles last month, as against sales of 17,395 units registered during the year-ago period. Accordingly, the Japanese auto major has made a below average start to the 2013 calendar year on Indian turf. Interestingly, the January sales figures also brought a sigh of relief for the company, since, it recorded its lowest worst ever sales of 12,071 units in December 2012.
Expressing his views on the 'not-so' impressive January sales, Sandeep Singh, Deputy Managing Director (MD) and Chief Operating Officer (COO), Marketing and Commercial, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, was quoted as saying, “The market is still witnessing a slowdown, especially the passenger car segment. The prospects for the second half of 2013 look better, with the budget round the corner.”
As per reports, the company shipped a total of 1,791 units of its Indian assembled Etios model to South Africa in January 2013. Hence, both domestic sales and exports took the company's total tally to 15,120 units delivered during last month. Further, Toyota Kirloskar Motor sold 384 units of Corolla, 49 units of Camry, 1,505 units of Fortuner, 2,900 units of Etios, 6,063 units of Innova, 2,427 units of Liva, 1 unit of Prado and no unit of Prius and Land Cruiser. Evidently, Toyota Fortuner premium Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) is the company's best selling model, of which a new five-speed automatic variant was introduced in the domestic market in mid-January 2013.
