Toyota Kirloskar to focus on local content: eyes 15 percent market share in ten years

By Our Corporate Bureau | 29 Mar 2005

Chennai: Toyota Kirloskar Motor is planning to capture about 15 per cent of the Indian car market by 2015 based on its strategy of increasing local content in its cars, which would help it to bring down prices.

A. Toyoshima, managing director, Toyota Kirloskar, addressing the press at a function organised by the Automotive Components Manufacturers'' Association (ACMA) said the company expects the Indian car market to have grown to 4 million by 2015 and Toyota''s production to have gone up to 6 lakh from 50,000.

Officials said Toyota''s small car, to be launched in India by 2006, would have a ''very high'' local content and the company is targeting between 100,000 and 150,000 units for the small car.

Toyoshima said Toyota Kirloskar Auto Parts the transmission division of the company set up in August 2004, has been making fully built gear boxes for export to Toyota''s plants throughout the world. He said the company would have produced around 1.6 lakh units of gearboxes, after a year of operation. "If the demand increases further, it would require additional investment to scale up capacity," said Toyoshima. He said, India is the second country after Japan, where Toyota manufactures gearboxes.

Toyota recently phased out its best-selling multi purpose vehicle, Qualis, replacing it with the Innova, built on the company''s innovative international multi purpose vehicle (IMV) project. Innova, which incorporates the positive points of both multi-purpose vehicles and passenger cars, is manufactured at Toyota Kirloskar''s Bidadi plant with an annual capacity of 60,000 units. The company intends to sell 45,000 units of Innova in 2005, 40 per cent of which is expected to sell in South India. Toyota Kirloskar is targeting total car sales of nearly 58,000 for the whole year.

The company closed 2004 with sales of nearly 47,000. The company has invested around Rs1,500 crore in its manufacturing plant at Bidadi of which Rs600 crore is for the Innova. At present Innova has nearly 70 per cent local content and only the engine and transmission are imported.