Toyota ups sales forecast as stimulus kicks in 

Toyota Motor Thailand (TMT) Co Ltd president Michinobu Sugata told reporters at the company’s mid-year press conference yesterday that economic stimulus packages by the government are bearing fruit.
“Thanks to the Thai government’s measures to stimulate national economic growth as well as the auto industry, the market has experienced a recovery trend during the first half of 2017,” he said.
Auto sales in Thailand grew by 11.2 per cent during the first six months of this year to 409,980 units.
“The outlook for auto sales in Thailand for 2017 has become more favourable with sustained growth in GDP, continued government spending to stimulate investments from the private sector and positive consumer confidence and the introduction of new models by various carmakers,” he said. “The auto market growth of 11.2 per cent for the first half of the year was beyond our expectations, and consequently we foresee the total auto market to reach 830,000 units this year, an 8 per cent rise from 2016.
Toyota, meanwhile, has not been performing well, registering only a 3 per cent growth compared to the 11.2 per cent market growth.
“We think that Toyota has been pushed back mainly due to the new model introductions from other brands and as a result, the freshness of our products has been somewhat lost at the moment. Toyota will strengthen our product line-up during the second half of this year to catch up with the market growth,” he said, adding that the company plans to sell a total of 265,000 vehicles in Thailand this year. While Toyota’s passenger car sales grew by 26.5 per cent during the first half of the year, pickup truck sales fell by 9.4 per cent.
According to figures provided by Toyota, in the passenger car market, Toyota, with 45,167 units sold during the first six months, trails arch rival Honda, with 45,983 units. In third position is Mazda with 16,971 units.
In the one-tonne pickup truck market, Toyota also lags behind another arch rival Isuzu (52,167 units versus 64,206) during the first six months, with the latter capitalising on the popularity of its efficient 1.9-litre models. American automaker Ford had a strong performance and rose to third position with 23,877 units, post?ing growth of 44.5 per cent.
Apart from several new and improved models to be launched during the remaining part of this year, Toyota plans to make a big market impact with the CH-R subcompact to be introduced next year. According to industry rumours, it could come with a 1.2 turbocharged engine as well as a hybrid version, and will dramatically help Toyota grow sales.
Toyota has three production plants in Thailand with a combined production capacity of 770,000 units, but are running at just 68 per cent. As much as 60 per cent of Toyota’s total production are destined for export.