17th May, 2012
Toyota recently announced that worldwide cumulative sales of its Innovative International Multi-purpose Vehicle (IMV) project series reached five million units at the end of March. Development of the IMV series started with three models – Hilux, Innova and Fortuner – for introduction in 2004 to over 140 countries. Based on the concept of producing vehicles where they are sold, Toyota established a worldwide production and supply system to offer vehicles quickly, and at an affordable price.
Currently, IMV vehicles are manufactured in 11 locations across the globe, including four countries designated as global IMV supply bases: Thailand, Indonesia, Argentina and South Africa. From here, vehicles are shipped to Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania, Central and South America, and the Middle East.
In addition, major components such as diesel engines produced in Thailand, petrol engines produced in Indonesia and transmissions produced in the Philippines and India are distributed to IMV-producing countries. The IMV series has proved popular in the developing world, reaching the one million vehicle milestone in 2006, two million in 2008, three million in 2009, four million in 2010, and five million this year. So it comes as no surprise that TMC will continue to put emerging markets as top priority, as stated in the Toyota Global Vision. TMC aims to increase its sales in such markets from the present ratio of 40 per cent of worldwide sales to 50 per cent by 2015.
Meanwhile, Toyota Motor said its net profit for the year to March 2013 was expected to more than double to 760 billion yen ($9.53 billion) on continued demand in emerging markets.
Toyota also said it forecast operating profit in the period to nearly triple on-year to 1.0 trillion yen amid surging demand for small and economically priced vehicles, as well as “green” models, a key segment for the automaker.