Guangqi Toyota still optimistic despite slashed sales forecast for 2014

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai October 23) - FAW Toyota announced that it was officially reducing its 2014 sales goal from 660,000 vehicles to 620,000 vehicles, the Securities Daily reported today. At the same time, Guangqi Toyota also announced that it would be revising its sales goal for the year from 400,000 vehicles to 380,000 vehicles. With the news, allegations have been surfing across the industry that Toyota will be unable to achieve their Chinese sales target of 1.1 million vehicles.

Despite the announcement, Guangqi Toyota, which recently celebrated its tenth year anniversary, is still confident for its future operations. According to its recently announced strategy, the joint venture aims to increase its production and sales capacity volumes to one million vehicles by 2020. In order to accomplish this goal, the JV will expand its product line to include over ten new models aimed at a variety of market segments. Considering that Toyota China has announced its intentions to achieve sales of two million vehicles in China, it is obvious that Guangqi Toyota is looking to match the performance of its counterpart FAW Toyota.

Guangqi Toyota President Kazuhiro Kobayashi has previously stated his desire to see the joint venture become Guangzhou's leading mainstream enterprise. However, considering Toyota China's 1.1 million sales goal for this year is the same as JV Dongfeng Nissan's target, it remains to be seen how one of its subsidiary joint ventures can go on to sell one million vehicles on its own.

Earlier this year at the Auto China show in Beijing, Hiroji Onishi, president of Toyota's China region operations and its subsidiary investment company, Toyota announced that it will aim to sell over 1.1 million vehicles in China this year. Its performance this year will eventually allow the manufacturer to reach future sales of two million vehicles. Toyota hopes to make China its third-largest market and become the country's leading Japanese manufacturer.

Unfortunately the manufacturer's sales performance so far this year has yet to live to those expectations. The manufacturer has sold a total of 710,300 vehicles over the first nine months of the year. Although the figure represents year-on-year growth of 11.5 percent, it means that it has only achieved 65 percent of its total sales goal so far. Despite the news that its joint ventures are reducing their sales targets, Toyota China has yet to follow suit.

That said, Toyota China did make noticeable strides in September, when its monthly sales volume of 91,100 vehicles represented commendable year-on-year sales growth of 26.1 percent. This strong performance has been attributed to the successful launches of new models such as the New Corolla and Levin. Its successful performance in September may be why Toyota is remaining confident that it can fulfill its sales target in the last quarter of the year.