Toyota to unveil concept compact car in India next month

The Japanese car maker Toyota Motor Corpn said it has planned to roll down a concept model of compact car next month. The Indian JV, Toyota-Kirloskar would begin the passionate model from its Bangalore unit sometime next December. Toyota treats this compact car project as a prestigious one to explicit its 11 year presence in the Indian market.

The sedan and hatchback versions, concepts imported from Japan, are ready for display at Auto Expo in January 2010. With the annual production target of 70000 units, the production will start by December 2010. With these versions, Toyota Prius will also be in the display at the Expo and the launch of this would be decided later, said the company’s official. The numbers for Prius do not matter a lot but the brand image for claiming some concession on duty, from the government.

Prius is too expensive for its exorbitant duty mode. The price of Prius is not known but the sale number of Toyota’s account is available – 53000 units by the end of 2009, against 51800 in 2008. The JV, Toyota(89%) Kirloskar (11%) Motors has amassed 4 lakh units of retail sales so far in the Indian market. The net sale till October 2009 was 5650 units, a hike of 50% from the one in the last year thanks to Corolla, Altis and Innova and the launch of Fortuner.

Toyota is safe and secured with the back up of 93 dealers , to be increased to 150 coinciding the launch of new compact car in 2011. Of the long series of Toyota in India, Corolla, Altis, Innova and Fortuner are the products made in the Indian units while Camry, Prado and Land Cruiser are CBU imports from Japan.

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