Toyota Motor Corp. (TM) plans to export its Indian made vehicles for the first time in its history. The automaker will begin exporting India-manufactured vehicles to South Africa. However, it will design the vehicles especially for the South African market.
The automaker decided to export the Etios sedan to South Africa from March next year. Etios has been launched and produced exclusively in the Indian market in 2010. Toyota plans to raise the annual production capacity in India to 310,000 vehicles in 2013 from 160,000 vehicles presently.
Toyota has been struggling with waning sales in the U.S., its most important market, due to production disruptions from the twin disasters in Japan. It has already lost its No.1 position to General Motors (GM) and Ford (F) in terms of sales. In the first nine months of the year, its sales fell 9% in the U.S.
As a result, Toyota is focusing on emerging markets in Asia for its sales growth. Recently, it announced plans to invest ¥30 billion ($388 million) for building an assembly plant in Indonesia in order to tap demand from the fast-growing Southeast Asian market. With the addition of the plant, the automaker’s production capacity in Indonesia will nearly double to 200,000 vehicles per year.
The new plant will be built adjacent to its existing factory in the Jakarta suburbs of Karawang, which will also be expanded by the automaker in two years. The plant will start operations from the first half of 2013 and is expected to assemble three subcompact models, including a low-priced strategic vehicle that is under development for the Indonesian market.
Toyota, a Zacks #3 Rank (Hold) company, posted a profit of ¥1.16 billion ($14.21 million) or ¥0.37 per share for the first quarter of its fiscal year ended June 30, 2011, which plummeted from ¥190.47 billion ($2.33 billion) or ¥60.74 per share a year ago.
The sharp fall in profit was attributable to the substantial decline in vehicle sales all over the world, especially North America and Europe due to disruptions in supply of parts caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March 2011.
Toyota expects revenues to be flat at ¥19.0 trillion for fiscal 2012 compared with the prior year. It has also lowered its guidance for operating income and net income for the fiscal year by 3.9% and 4.5% to ¥450 billion and ¥390 billion, respectively.
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