Toyota sees 2013 sales hitting 75,000 units

MANILA, Philippines – Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. has raised its vehicle sales target this year to more than 75,000 units on the back of a booming Philippine market and the expected robust performance of its all-new Vios model.

The target represents a 15-percent increase from TMP’s total vehicle sales of 65,396 units last year and is slightly higher than the 70,000 unit sales initially projected by the company.

At the sidelines of the company’s 25th anniversary Thursday night, TMP president Michinobu Sugata noted that they had to “upgrade”—or push for higher sales to protect their market share—as the local industry expected higher sales of 210,000 units for 2013.

TMP so far remains the industry leader with a 40-percent market share as of end-June this year.

“We will continue with our investments as long as we can find the potential for growth. We will keep on investing in people, technology and local production,” Sugata said.

The magnitude of these investments, however, would depend on government support in terms of the measures and policies that would be put in place under the automotive manufacturing roadmap being mapped out by the Board of Investments, an attached agency of the Department of Trade and Industry.

“My impression is the DTI (Department of Trade and  Industry) is very positive in boosting measures in the automotive manufacturing, but the contents of the roadmap are not disclosed yet so we’re waiting for specific proposals. But our hopes are high,” Sugata said.

The roadmap, which is expected to contain a set of fiscal, volume-based incentives that will revive and further boost the local automotive manufacturing sector, is expected to put the Philippines in the auto manufacturing map in the Asean. These incentives are set to be presented to the Cabinet within the next two weeks.

In a separate interview with reporters, TMP vice chair Alfred V. Ty noted that the roadmap “is very important for us to make that steps [for additional investments].”

“When that comes out, we’re able to sit down seriously with our counterparts in Japan and Singapore. It will allow us to talk about new investments for the export of car parts [and not completely built-up units (CBU)]. We’ve explained our logic and position to the government because CBU needs economies of scale,” Ty explained.

Meanwhile, TMP inaugurated on Friday the Toyota Motor Philippines School of Technology (TMP Tech) in Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

At the inauguration ceremonies, Ty said the TMP Tech would be at the forefront of human resources development for Filipinos.