Japanese car-makers Toyota has decided to focus on bigger cars rather than produce small cars for the Indian market. The revelation was made by Vikram Kirloskar, Vice Chairman, Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt. Ltd. Kirloskar stated, “Mass market segment is not for Toyota. I think Toyota’s game will be in bigger car segments such as Corolla's and Innova's segment. We have tried hard to break the cost-barrier in the small car segment but we have just not been able to do so.”
Recently Toyota had unveiled the Etios cross crossover and the Corolla Altis sedan for the Indian market. The Japanese car-maker has also been embroiled in labor unrest situation at its Bidadi facility in Bangalore. Speaking on the situation, Kirloskar said, “We hope to end the stalemate by Monday. It has to be done as soon as possible as we have a couple of new models to be launched during June and July. We already have order backlog for those models, even before we announced the prices for these products. So, we don’t want to be caught on the wrong foot.”
Toyota's rival Honda Cars India Ltd. has performed better in terms of sales numbers last year. The Amaze and the City sedans from Honda has been a hot-seller in the Indian market. As per a recent update, Toyota's market share has dipped to 5.18%. Overall market sales for the car-maker dipped to about 6% in last fiscal year. Moreover, Toyota reported a sharp drop of about 22.2% in vehicle sales. Mr. Vikram Kirloskar has hinted on launching new models soon for the local market, he said, “Toyota will bounce back into the game very shortly. We have a lot of models coming in. If you have studied our journey so far, it has always been cyclical.”
Source: Livemint
