Toyota Motors has new plans in line for capturing a larger market share and increasing its presence in the country. The company is now intending to enter the rural market segment and intends to sell at least 40 percent of its vehicles in this untapped market. Till date, the company has been largely focussing on urban and metro cities of India and had largely ignored the rural segment.
Toyota marks its presence in India as Toyota Kirloskar Motors where the parent company holds 89 percent stake. “To achieve this scale of volume, we have to enter India’s rural markets in a big way. We are aggressively expanding our dealership footprint in India and quite a significant portion of this will be in country’s heartland. By end of 2010, we plan to have 150 dealers across the country,” said Hiroshi Nakagawa, managing director of TKM.
Toyota perceives India as a large booming market where there are only 16 cars per 1000 people as compared to Japan where there are 593 cars per 1000 people. Toyota is also studying the Indian market to assess the potential of setting up a research and analysis unit and an engine production plant.
