Toyota Kirloskar Motor has decided to strengthen its market presence in India by venturing into the semi-urban and rural areas. “We will appoint 35 dealers in cities like Salem, Tirupur and Kancheepuram soon,” said Mr Sandeep Singh, deputy managing director, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, at a function held to mark the export of its first consignment of 247 Etios cars to South Africa from Ennore port on Wednesday.
He said the company would also ramp up its manufacturing capacity to produce 310,000 cars per annum by December 2013 in India. At present, the company has two manufacturing facilities in Karnataka with a total production capacity of 210,000 cars per annum.
Further, Mr Singh said, the company would also start assembling new Camry in India from August this year. “We have stopped import of Camry and, so, the model might not be available in India for the next three months. After judging the initial success, we will slowly ramp up the production capacity of new Camry in India,” he added.
Talking about the export of the first consignment to South Africa, Toyota Kirloskar Motor managing director Hiroshi Nakagawa said the company would export 20,000 cars this year. “We will study the results and also demands from other markets before spreading into other parts of Africa,” he added.
Mr Nakagawa noted that the company has begun export of sedan Etios and hatchback Etios Liva to the African country mainly to improve its staggering market share there.