Toyota expects vehicle sales to fall further in 2009

Toyota Motor Corp. today slashed its global sales target for 2009, a further setback to its ambition of becoming the top selling automaker worldwide after last month's lowering of its 2008 sales forecast from 9.85 million to 9.5 million vehicles. (See: Toyota to invest $700 million in Brazil; reportedly cuts global sales target)

Japan's biggest carmaker by sales volume cut its worldwide sales outlook for 2009 to 9.7 million vehicles from its previous forecast of 10.4 million vehicles. This includes sales and production at its subsidiaries - Daihatsu Motor Co and Hino Motors Ltd. These two companies' sales account for about 10 per cent of the total estimate.

The automaker will reduce production in the UK and Poland, adding to cuts in the US. Toyota lowered the target for North America, its biggest market, by 10 per cent as drivers buy fewer sport-utility vehicles and pickup trucks because of gasoline prices that have reached $4 a gallon.

Toyota has enjoyed rapid sales growth in the past five years in particular, expanding in the US and other overseas markets as increasingly cost and environmentally conscious consumers snapped up its fuel sipping, high-quality vehicles.

It narrowly missed out on unseating General Motors Corp. as the world's top auto seller last year. While it has overtaken its rival in the first six months of this year, declining momentum at home and abroad will make it harder to maintain this lead. (See: Toyota overtakes GM in first-half global sales)

Speaking at a press conference outlining its new targets, Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe blamed the unexpected deterioration in the sector's business climate for the cuts.

"(A year ago) we couldn't have predicted the (current) economic environment and movements in crude oil and materials prices."

Watanabe said it's too early to outline the company's sales outlook for 2010 given the global economy's uncertain prospects. But he told reporters after the press conference that selling more than 10 million vehicles remains a future possibility, "as long as gasoline prices and economic conditions change."