Japan based auto manufacturing giant, Toyota on May 25, 2012 said that it will soon be rolling out new compact cars for the developing nations. The company assured that the new compact cars will be priced around $12,500 and will target the sales of more than one million of the models on an annual basis in the competitive markets by the year 2015.
Toyota said that it will be making eight new cars at its facilities in India, Thailand, Indonesia and Brazil, priced at about 1.0 million yen or more. Yukitoshi Funo, the executive vice president told the reporters at its Tokyo headquarters, “We don’t sell cars priced at 500,000 yen”.
The new cars are aimed mainly at the emerging nations which have the most competitive markets like India, Indonesia and Brazil, but Funo said, “if customers in the United States or Europe like them, I will flexibly think about (selling them there)”. In the year 2010, Toyota launched its compact car Etios in the Indian market, which was priced at $10,000.
Yet it was far behind from its rivals like Tata, who sells Nano for just $2,900. Toyota on May 25 said that the total sales of the Etios have surpassed 100,000 vehicles in India since its launch.
